MISSIONARY STORIES 

FOR LITTLE FOLKS 

First Series, Primary 

MARGARET T. 
APPLEGARTH 







Gass. 
Book 



PRESENTED BV 



MISSIONARY STORIES 
FOR LITTLE FOLKS 

First Series: Primary 



MARGARET T.APPLEGARTH 



MISSIONARY STORIES 
FOR LITTLE FOLKS 

First Series: Primary 



BY 

MARGARET T. APPLEGARTH 

AUTHOR OF "MISSIONARY STORIES FOR LITTLE FOLKS, 
SECOND SERIES: JUNIOR," ETC. 



WITH 52 DRAWINGS 
AND VERSES 




NEW XlJM YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, 1917, 
BY BOARD OF PUBLICATION AND BIBLE SCHOOL WORK 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 










TABLE OF CONTENTS 



THE ^YORLD 

PAGE 

First Story. "The World God Made for Us." 7 

Second Story. "The Family God Made for Him- 
self." 13 

Third Story. "How the Artist Forgot Four Colors." 19 

Fourth Story. "God's Helpers." 27 

JAPAN 

Fifth Story. "The Little House-That-was-Made- 

of-Paper." 32 

Sixth Story. "The Cradle-That- Walked-on-Two- 

Feet." 39 

Seventh Story. "The Temple-That-Had-Five- 

Roofs." 45 

Eighth Story. "The Fish-That-Swam-in-the-Air." 50 
Ninth Story. "The Little Girl-Who-Turned-the- 

Shoes- Around." 56 

Tenth Story. "The Man-Who-Was-a-Horse-all- 

Day." 63 

Eleventh Story. "The Fairy Mirror." 69 

Twelfth Story. "Monkey Tails and Other Tales." 77 

NEGROES (America and Africa) 
Thirteenth Story. "Cotton Tails and Other Tales." 85 
Fourteenth Story. "The House-that-was-Built 

in-Half-an-Hour." 92 

3 



4 Contents 

PAGE 

Fifteenth Story. "How the Turtle Saved His 

Life." 99 

Sixteenth Story. "The Banana Tree-that-was- 

Dressed-Up." 105 

INDIA 

Seventeenth Story. "Elephant Tails and Other 

Tales." 113 

Eighteenth Story. "The Way They Eat Supper 

in India." 120 

Nineteenth Story. "A Crocodile Tail and a Mon- 
key Tale." 126 

Twentieth Story. "How Ramaswami's Father 

Came to Wear Spectacles." 133 
Twenty-first Story. "Ramaswami's Mother 

Earns a Rupee." 140 

Twenty-second Story. "The Little Girl- Who-' Al- 
most'- Had-to-be 
Turned-Away." 147 

WORLD-CHILDREN'S DAY 
Twenty-third Story. "God's Little Garden.". . . . 154 



MOUNTAINEERS OF KENTUCKY 

Twenty-fourth Story. "The Lonely-House-That 

Had-No-Neighbors." . 160 
Twenty-fifth Story. "The Little Girl-Who-Never 

said-Please." 167 

Twenty-sixth Story. "The Sunbonnet Baby.". . . 173 
Twenty-seventh Story. J< The Ge t- Well-Room. ".. 179 



Contents 5 

IMMIGRANTS 

PAGE 

Twenty-eighth Story. "The People-Who-Come 

Here-in-Boats." 185 

Twenty-ninth Story. " Pig-Tails and Other Tales." 191 
Thirtieth Story. "The Lady Whose Feet Were 

Welcome." 198 

ALASKA 

Thirty-first Story. "The House-That- Was-Made- 

Out-of-Ice." 204 

Thirty-second Story. "What Happens to the Es- 
kimo Sim in Winter." . 209 

Thirty-third Story. "Totem Pole Land." 215 

Thirty-fourth Story. "How We Get Our Pink 

Fish." 220 

CHINA 

Thirty-fifth Story. "In a Chinese Kitchen." .... 224 
Thirty-sixth Story. "The Dragon-that-S wallows 

the-Sun-Every-Day." ... 232 
Thirty-seventh Story. " Turtle Tails and Chicken 

Tales." 238 

Thirty-eighth Story. "A Ride in a Wheelbarrow." 245 

Thirty-ninth Story. "Little Miss Daffodil." 252 

Fortieth Story. "How a Toy Rooster Preached a 

Sermon." 259 

^orty-first Story. "The Little -Boy -Who -Was - 

Called-by-a-GirFs-Name." 267 
Forty-second Story. "What the Grandfather Did 

with the Idols." 274 



6 Contents 

AMERICAN INDIANS 

PAGB 

Forty-third Story. "The Cradle-That-Hung -in- 

a-Tree." 279 

Forty-fourth Story." "One Little, Two Little, 

Three Little Injuns." 285 
Forty-fifth Story. "How the Ducks Got Their 

Fine Feathers." 291 

Forty-sixth Story. "The Jesus Road." 296 

Forty-seventh Story. "The Great Pow-wow"... 302 

ARABIA 

Forty-eighth Story. "Camel Tails and Other 

Tales." 309 

Forty-ninth Story. "The House-That- Wears-an- 

Overcoat." 315 

Fiftieth Story. "Donkey Tails and Other Tales." 322 
Fifty-first Story. "The Land Where Jesus was 

Born." 329 

Fifty-second Story. "The Gifts That the Wise 

Men Brought." 337 



FOREWORD TO TEACHERS 

These Primary Stories have pur- 
posely been kept very simple, and the 
fact that they come in groups, — several 
about one country, with the same char- 
acters appearing in each, will give every 
Teacher a good opportunity to conduct 
a little review lesson before telling the 
new story. 

Teachers beginning this series in any 
other month than January are, never- 
theless, requested to start in with the 
first story and proceed regularly with 
each successive story, since there is an 
evolution of thought to be developed 
and those first lessons about God's 
World and God's Family are the 
foundation of the whole course. For 
the stories are designed not only to give 
local color about the people in lands 
where our missionaries work, but also 
to create an attitude toward God's Fam- 



Foreword to Teachers 

ily, who, because they know nothing 
about Him, fear the peaceful, lovely 
phenomena which He has so thought- 
fully placed in His world for us all. 
When once you have instilled this atti- 
tude in the minds of your children, who 
are "Our Church of To-morrow/' you 
will have formed the first incentive for 
"giving" and "going" and "telling": 
any definite reasons for which are often 
so sadly lacking in our grown-up 
"church of to-day." 

M. T. A. 
Rochester, N. Y. 



FIRST STORY 

THE WORLD GOD MADE FOR US 




"And Nature, the old nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 
Saying: 'The World is a Story Book 
Thy Father hath written for thee !' " 

(Anon.) 

Something for you to do : You can make this little 
picture of God's World very beautiful by coloring 
the trees and grass green and the sky blue. Make 
the little girl's dress the color you like best of all ! 



"THE WORLD GOD MADE 

FOR US" 

Once upon a time there were no trees,, 
no grass, no flowers, no vegetables, no 
birds, no animals, no fishes, no men, no 
women, no children— there was even no 
dry land and no light, because once 
there was a time when God began to 
make His World; and before He be- 
gan, there was nothing anywhere. 

Nobody knows how He did it all, be 
cause there was no man living to see it, 
but many, oh, ever and ever so many 
years later, God put a few ideas about 
how He made His World into the mind 
of a man, and that man told his children, 
and by and by a great-great-great- 
great-grandson of that first man wrote 
down the few things God had put in 
their hearts, and what he wrote is in the 
first few chapters of our Bible. That is 

8 



- 



The World God Made for Us 9 

the only way we know anything at all 
about it. 

The Bible tells us that after every- 
thing was made, God looked at each 
thing in His World and said: "It is 
good ! ' ' I want to show you today with 
what love and care God made every- 
thing, so that every time you and I look 
at His trees and His birds and His 
flowers and His animals we can say, too : 
"It is good!" 

Did you ever think, for instance, 
about how carefully God made all the 
little birds? For one thing, He made 
so many different kinds— there are red 
birds and yellow birds, green birds and 
black birds and blue birds, brown ones 
and w T hite ones, too. Some birds are 
really perfectly huge, like the eagle, 
and others are ever and ever so tiny, 
like the humming bird. God made 
wings for them so they could fly and 
bills for them so they could eat and help 
build their soft nests ; and tucked away 
inside the throat of each bird, big or 
little, He put a song of some kind — so 



io First Story 

that every day, in rain or shine, yon can 
hear His birds singing in their own 
way: "God is good!" 

As for the flowers, you cannot imag- 
ine how the world would be without 
them, can you? No dandelions— no 
roses — no violets — no pansies — no 
daisies: my! how we would miss them! 
Yet we hardly take time to think how 
carefully God made them in that won- 
derful beginning, how tenderly He 
painted their pretty petals, or how lov- 
ingly He is still taking care of them to- 
day. He sends His rain and His sun 
and His wind to help them grow, and 
although God did not tuck any song in- 
side His flowers, I cannot help but 
know that as each little flower opens and 
fills the air with its sweet smell, that is 
its way of saying: "God is good." 

I wonder if you knew we could hardly 
live without God's trees?— Not only be- 
cause they are very beautiful to look at, 
or even because they shade us from the 
hot sun, but because we use the trees to 
build our houses and make our chairs 



The World God Made for Us n 

and tables and beds, we burn the trees 
to keep us warm, we eat the fruit of 
the trees when we are hungry, we make 
boats out of trees when we sail on the 
water and cars out of trees when we 
travel on the land. Yet after all these 
years and years in which people have 
used God's trees, there are still enough 
for years and years more. God made 
even the biggest oak tree to grow out of 
a tiny acorn, and large maple trees to 
grow out of those cunning maple keys 
we love to play with. And although 
He did not put any song into the trunks 
of His trees, I think that whenever His 
wind blows through their leaves you can 
really hear them whispering over and 
over: "God is good!" "God is good!" 

As for His animals I simply cannot 
take time enough to tell you how won- 
derfully God made them and taught 
them how to live! You and I would 
miss the animals if there were none, not 
only because we love to have pets, but 
because animals give us food to eat, and 
their heavy skins of wool and fur keep 



12 First Story 

us warm in winter, and make soft covers 
for the books we read and the furniture 
we use. 

So you see that God did not make any 
of the wonderful things in His World 
for Himself, but all of them for us, His 
family! So while He surely likes the 
birds and flowers and trees and animals, 
it is only the children in His family that 
He loves! 

It is very much like what happens 
when mother has tucked you in bed and 
you are sound asleep: then she tiptoes 
around the nursery and picks up your 
little broken doll, your wooden horse, 
your toy soldiers, your train of cars, 
your Teddy Bear — she is so careful to 
put them where they will be safe for 
you to use tomorrow, not because she 
really loves the toys, you know, but oh ! 
how she does love YOU! God is just 
like that: He made His world full of 
playthings so that His dear family 
might have everything they needed to 
make them happy. 



SECOND STORY 

THE FAMILY GOD MADE FOR 
HIMSELF 




LITTLE BROTHER HYMN 

"If every little child could see 
Our Saviour's shining face, 
I think that each one eagerly 
Would run to His embrace. 

Though black the hand, red, brown or white, 
All hearts are just the same ; 
Each one is precious in God's sight, 
Each one He calls by name. 

And those who hear in every land 
With loyal hearts and true, 
Will grasp some little brother's hand 
And lead him onward, too." 

(Alfked R. Lincoln.) 




"THE FAMILY GOD MADE FOE 
HIMSELF" 

Last Sunday I told you how God 
made His World for us, His Family, 
and how after it was all made He said : 
"It is good!" And although that was 
thousands and thousands of years ago 
His birds and His flowers, His trees 
and His animals are each still saying: 
"God is good!" So now I want to tell 
you how God made His Family, al- 
though I am sure you know already that 
Adam and Eve were the first members 
of His Family, and that God gave them 
His World to play in. 

For a while they were very happy 
giving names to His birds and His 
flowers, His trees and His animals, but 
one day they did the only thing that 
God had asked them not to do! Then 
they were very unhappy, and somehow 
when Adam and Eve had sons and 
daughters of their own, they did things 
that they ought not to do; then when 

14 



The Family God Made for Himself 15 

tliey grew up, and had sons and daugh- 
ters they also did things they ought not 
to do! Although that was thousands 
and thousands of years ago the children 
of those first members of God's Family 
who are living in God's World today 
are still doing things they know they 
ought not to do ! 

Why, I dare say, you can think right 
away of something wrong you have 
done, yourself, can't you? Everybody 
can! And yet God keeps on loving us 
and giving us all the beautiful things in 
His World to play with. He even gave 
us His own dear son Jesus. It ought 
to make us say what all the birds and 
flowers and trees in God's World keep 
saying day after day: "God is good." 

You and I do sav it every Sunday in 
Sunday School, and every night when 
we pray, and when w^e say grace before 
meals! But some of the members of 
God's Family never sing a song to Him, 
or pray a prayer to thank Him, because 
—now do listen!— because they don't 
know anything at all about God! Not 



i6 Second Story 

one thing! They don't know that He 
made the World, that He packed it full 
of beautiful things for them, they don't 
know that He loves them or that He 
sent Jesus specially to tell us all how 
much God loves us. They never heard 
even a word about any of these things ! 

That just gives you an idea how per- 
fectly huge God's World is, and how 
many, many members there are in God's 
Family, scattered here and there all 
over His World. 

Now, I wonder which one of you here 
has the biggest family ? Has anyone of 
you two brothers or sisters? . . . 
Anyone got three brothers or sisters? 
. . . Four? . -. . Five? . . . Six? . . . 
Seven? . . . Well, now tell me this: 
do you all look exactly alike? Has 
everyone in your family got brown hair, 
(Mary)? No? And has everyone in 
your family blue eyes like yours, 
(Philip)? No? Well, has everyone in 
your family freckles Hke yours, (Sam- 
my) ? No? . . . 

Why, that is just exactly the wav it 



The Family God Made for Himself 17 

is in God's great big Family, scattered 
all over His World :— some of them who 
live in a large place called China have 
yellow skins, and some who live in 
another large place called Africa have 
black skins, while others in a place 
called India have brown skins, and ever 
and ever so many of His Family have 
white skins, like yours and mine. But 
the color of their skin doesn't make a 
bit of difference to God! 

I don't believe your mother loves 
(Kate) best of all your family because 
she has golden hair, or (Ruth) best be- 
cause she has blue eyes. Mothers are- 
n't that way: somehow they just can't 
help loving every single one of their 
children! And God is that same way! 
I really don't believe He ever even 
notices the color of anybody's skin. He 
must have liked all the different colors, 
because He made them that way Him- 
self, you know. 

Another beautiful thing is that He 
understands what everybody says. That 
is a little like your mother, too. For if 



1 8 Second Story 

there is a Baby in your f amily, you will 
remember how sometimes the Baby tries 
hard to say something, and you simply 
can't understand a single word he bab- 
bles ! But your dear mother smiles and 
says: "Baby says he's hungry," or 
"Baby says he likes the pretty picture 
on the v wall." You see, God made 
mothers so they could understand their 
children, just as He understands every 
single child in His Family. 

It doesn't make a bit of difference to 
Him if the yellow members of His Fam- 
ily talk Chinese, or the brown members 
talk Telugu, or if we white members 
talk English— He understands us all, 
because He made us. And down in my 
heart I feel that since it doesn't make 
any difference to God what language 
His children talk or what color their 
skin is, He wouldn't want it to make 
any difference to you and me, either. 

But I do think we should all feel very 
sorry that some of the members of 
God's Family never even heard about 
Him, don't you? 



THIRD STORY 

HOW THE ARTIST FORGOT 
FOUR COLORS 




LITTLE CRADLES 



All over the earth they are swaying, 
The nests where the little ones lie, 
And the faces, black, brown, white or yellow, 
Are watched by the Father's kind eye. 

Because, long ago in a manger, 

The Dearest of little ones lay, 

Our hearts turn with prayer to the Father 

To bless every baby to-day. 

(The Missionary Helper.) 

Something for you to do: Paint the five faces the 
colors they ought to be. 

19 



"H#W THE ABTIST FORGOT 
FOUR COLORS" 

Once upon a time a very beautiful 
church was being built, and before it 
was done all the people said : ' ' Now the 
time has come to get the very finest art- 
ist in the w T orld to make us a wonderful 
picture in glass, for our stained glass 
window over the choir." 

So, as Grown-Up people have a way 
of doing, they left it to a very wise 
Committee to choose the artist and the 
subject of the picture. Because the 
name of the church was to be "The 
Church of the Christ-Child" they 
wanted the picture to be about little 
children, so they chose as a subject that 
lovely hymn we sometimes sing in Sun- 
day-school : 

"Around the throne of God in Heaven 
Thousands of children stand, 
Children whose sins are all forgiven, 
A holy, happy band, singing: 

Glory ! Glory ! 

Glory be to God on High." 

20 



How the Artist Forgot Four Colors 21 

You know how artists work, don't 
you? With a great big sheet of white 
canvas and a queer oval thing called a 
palette for his colors with a hole for his 
thumb— just like the card pictures you 
have in your hand? Well, our Artist 
painted and painted and painted, day 
after dav, until he made what he knew 
was the very best picture he had ever 
painted, and he loved every inch of that 
canvas: For there was Jesus, and all 
around Him the dearest, loveliest, hap- 
piest children you can imagine, singing 
—oh, you could almost hear them sing- 
ing, " Glory! Glory! Glory be to God 
on High," as they stood around the 
Saviour with their golden heads thrown 
back and their sweet white throats full 
of beautiful music ! 

The Artist was perfectly delighted 
with his work, and as it was all done, he 
sent word to the wise Committee to 
come the next morning to see it, to be 
sure they liked it— before he started the 
glass window picture, you understand % 

Then he went to bed. And he waut to 



22 Third Story 

sleep, still very happy over the finished 
picture in his studio. But in the middle 
of the night he was quite sure he heard 
a little noise in the studio where his 
precious picture stood ... he lis- 
tened . . . yes! he knew he heard 
sounds there ! So he got up and hurried 
in, and there he found a Stranger with 
His thumb through the Artist's palette, 
actually painting on the Artist's pic- 
ture! 

The Artist rushed up, crying: "Oh, 
Stop ! Stop ! You are ruining it ! Oh, 
look what you have done already ! You 
have spoiled it— and alas! alas! the 
Committee are coming tomorrow morn- 
ing." 

The Stranger turned calmly around, 
and just as calmly He said: "When I 
came in the room I saw that you had 
spoiled it yourself, so I am merely mak- 
ing it right. You had five colors left 
on your palette, why did you use only 
one color for the faces of the little chil- 
dren? Who told you their faces were 
all white in Heaven?" 



How the Artist Forgot Four Colors 23 

The artist looked surprised as he 
tried to think: "Why, no one ever told 
me, Sir, but I always thought of it that 
way!" 

The Stranger smiled kindly: "But 
now, of course, you see how wrong you 
w r ere. I have simply used these other 
colors and made some of the faces yel- 
low and some brown and some red and 
some black, for these little ones have 
come from many lands in answer to my 
call " 

"Your call?" asked the Artist, puz- 
zled, "What call was that, Sir?" 

The Stranger's wonderful voice re- 
plied in words that sounded strangely 
familiar : ' i Suffer the little children to 
come unto Me, and forbid them not, for 
of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 

Then the artist knew that the 
Stranger must indeed be the Lord 
Jesus Himself, but even as he knew 
it, the Stranger was gone, and the 
Artist was alone facing his changed 
picture. And as he looked he smiled 
happily: for there were some dear 



24 Third Story 

little yellow children with slant-up 
eyes, and he knew they were singing 
" Glory! Glory! Glory be to God on 
High" in Chinese! And next to them 
were quaint little brown children with 
great brown eyes, and next to them 
black children, and next to them, dear 
little red children: the happiest, love- 
liest lot of children, and white ones, too ! 
The Artist looked and looked and 
looked, he was so pleased picking out 
where the children came from: "You 
came from India, you dear little brown 
fellows with turbans and you cunning 
brown girls in gay shawls ! You brown 
boys with red caps are from Arabia; 
and you little black children— you're 
from Africa ; while you red ones live 
near me right in America,— you're 
American Indians." It seemed as if he 
kept on standing there looking and look- 
ing, and loving it better and better all 
night long . . . when all of a sudden 
he woke up, to find the morning sun 
shining in the window, and there he 



How the Artist Forgot Four Colors 25 

was : in bed ! He simply could not un- 
derstand ! 

He ruslied into the studio, and there 
stood his picture— and all the little 
faces were white, just like yours ! Then 
he knew he had had a dream, but such 
a beautiful dream he could never forget 
it again. 

You will remember that the Commit- 
tee were coming that morning to judge 
the picture, and oh ! how he worked try- 
ing to make it look exactly the way the 
Stranger had made it look in his dream : 
—and sure enough, one by one quaint 
little yellow faces with slant-up eyes, 
and little brown faces with great brown 
eyes, and smiling black faces with smil- 
ing eyes, began to appear, and that pic- 
ture became just as lovely as the dream 
picture had been. 

Then the wise Committee arrived, 
and they loved it, right off! only of 
course they used big long words about 
it, the way Grown-Up people do : " Cap- 
tivating !" and " Entrancing!" "Fas- 
cinating!" "Such marvelous character- 



26 Third Story 

ization!" And oh dear me! a great 
many other equally big words, but one 
sweet quiet lady, the mother of lively 
little boys and girls just like you, said 
with a happy sigh: "Why, it's God's 
Family at home with Him, isn't it? I 
love it !" 

And I think God's Family will al- 
ways mean all those five colors to you 
and me, won't it? 



FOURTH STORY 

GOD'S HELPERS 




Two words in the Bible are harder to obey 

Than you ever dreamed of: one's Go, and one's STAY! 

It's hard for God's Helpers to GO o'er the sea 

And far ~rom their families and loved ones to be. 

It's hard for God's Helpers to STAY over there 

And teach heathen people for Jesus to care. 

But soon they are busy as busy can be 

And I think they are happier, really, than we! 



2? 



"GOD'S HELPERS" 

Last Sunday you will remember we 
had a story about an Artist, and a 
Dream, and Five Colors : black, brown, 
red, yellow and white ; and we learned 
that all the little children in God's 
Family belong to one of the five colors ! 
You and I belong to the white members 
of God's Family, which makes us 
happy, because more of the white peo- 
ple know about God and how much He 
loves His family than any other color 
knows. But there are still thousands 
and thousands of white children, and 
millions and millions and millions of 
yellow children and black ones and 
brown ones and red ones who know 
nothing at all about God, who never 
even heard how He made His World 
so that the members of His Family 
could enjoy it. No, they live all their 
lives being afraid of everything out- 

28 



God's Helpers 29 

doors and everything indoors; and be- 
cause they seem to need to worship 
something they have carved ugly little 
figures of men and women out of wood, 
or chiseled them out of stone, and they 
kneel down before these carved bits of 
wood and stone the way we kneel before 
God— because they don't know any 
better. 

I am glad to say there have always 
been members of our church who have 
wanted these other members of God's 
Family to know about Him, just as 
you and I do, so they have done a very 
beautiful thing : they have raised money 
and sent Christian teachers and preach- 
ers way over across the seas to the 
place where the Yellow children and the 
Brown children in God's Family live. 
So every single day, the money that you 
and I, and our mothers and fathers 
give, helps one of our missionaries to 
tell these other members of God's Fam- 
ily about Him. 

For these teachers and preachers who 
go over the sea to tell about God are 



30 Fourth Story- 

called missionaries, and they are really 
very wonderful, interesting people, al- 
though isn't it funny ?— they never seem 
to know how wonderful or interesting 
they are ! 

No indeed, they are so busy all day 
long telling about God that they never 
have a minute to think about themselves, 
so I just want to tell you a few things 
myself, so you can always remember 
that a missionary is a very brave, fine 
person. 

In the first place, everybody likes best 
to keep right on living with their own 
families and their old friends, don't 
they? But our missionaries have to 
kiss their families goodbye, then they 
get into railroad trains or into great big 
ships, and they travel for days and days, 
sometimes for w T eeks and weeks, every 
day getting further and further from 
their families, and nearer and nearer 
to the members of God's Family who 
never heard of Him. 

Then when they get to the end of 
their journey, they settle down to live 



God's Helpers 31 

among all these strangers, and quite 
often they can't understand a single 
word that is said to them— because you 
will remember I told you the members 
of God's Family talk in all sorts of 
languages. Of course God understands 
what they say perfectly, but our mis- 
sionaries have to learn the new words, 
and it takes a long time and is very 
hard. They make the funniest mis- 
takes, sometimes, or really dreadful 
mistakes, and perhaps for several daj^s 
they get homesick and wish they could 
see their dear mothers and fathers and 
sisters and brothers. 

But God has a beautiful way of His 
own in taking care of our missionaries, 
and they forget themselves in learning 
the new words for "book," "house," 
"hungry," "thank you," "isn't your 
baby pretty?" or "won't you come to 
our little new church?" 

Our missionaries do all kinds of beau- 
tiful things for anybody who needs their 
help, and sometimes they help people 
whom you and I would not like to touch 



32 Fourth Story 

or even look at : people who are terribly 
sick and covered with all kinds of dirt, 
but our missionaries know that God 
loves people like that just exactly as He 
loves anybody else, so they love them, 
too. 

So these other members of God's 
Family get to love our missionaries, be- 
cause they are kind and good ; then little 
by little they learn about God, and they 
get to love Him, because He is even 
more kind and good than our mission- 
aries. . 

Don't you love to think that every 
single day our missionaries are spend- 
ing all their time spreading the newe 
that God is good and that He loves 
everybody everywhere? I do! And 
every Sunday from now on I am going 
to have a new story about some of these 
members of God's Family whom our 
Missionaries are helping. 



r 



FIFTH STORY 

THE LITTLE HOUSE THAT 
WAS MADE OF PAPER 




"The little children of Japan 
Are fearfully polite ; 
They always thank their rice and tea 
Before they take a bite, 
And say, 'you make us most content, 
O honorable nourishment.' 

"The little children of Japan 
With toys of paper play, 
And carry paper parasols 
To keep the rain away; 
And when you go to see, you'll find 
It's paper walls they live behind !" 

(Anon.) 

33 



"THE LITTLE HOUSE-THAT- 
WAS-M ADE-OE-P APER ' ' 

Away, away, oh, ever and ever so far 
away in a beautiful country called 
Japan, in a queer little town, there is a 
dear little garden and a dear little, 
queer little house made of paper ! Such 
a funny little house, like the one on your 
cards,— for although the outside is built 
of wood, the windows are made of 
paper, and the walls are made of paper, 
and the sliding doors are made of 
paper! You can imagine how careful 
the Japanese children have to be, not 
to fall clear through the wall into the 
next room ! 

The whole floor is covered with soft 
pretty matting, and nobody sits on 
chairs in the little houses that are made 
of paper, but they tuck their legs under 
them and sit right down on the floor all 
day long! Grandfather and grand- 

34 



House that was Made of Paper 35 

mother, father and mother, uncles and 
aunts and children— everybody sits that 
way; and at night they don't use beds 
at all; no, they roll themselves up in 
a quilt and lie right down on the mat- 
ting, and for pillows they use hard little 
blocks of wood, which sounds dreadfully 
uncomfortable, I know, but everybody 
in Japan is used to that kind of pillow, 
you see ! 

The queer little house is very differ- 
ent from yours and mine,— for we have 
our nicest porch and our parlor right 
in the front of the house, don't we? So 
it will be the first thing visitors see. But 
in Japan the prettiest part of the house 
is at the back because that is where the 
dear little garden is, and whenever the 
people who live in the queer little house 
want to, they just begin sliding back the 
paper walls until all the rooms become 
one room, opening right into the pretty 
garden. In this garden there is a tiny 
lake with a tiny bridge over it, and a 
queer stone lantern, and some lovely 
flowers. Quite the loveliest place you 



36 Fifth Story 

ever saw. It sounds like a fairy story, I 
know, but there are hundreds and hun- 
dreds of queer little houses and dear 
little gardens all over Japan. So you 
^ee this is a really-truly story ! 

Nobody dares to wear shoes in these 
dear little, clean little houses, for the 
matting must be kept clean enough to 
sit on, so that is the reason why they 
always leave their funny wooden shoes 
at the door, and only wear stockings in 
the house. 

Now let's pretend the father is hav- 
ing his breakfast— of soup and rice, if 
you please ! Of course he is sitting on 
the floor, and in front of him is tho 
^niest little red lacquered table you 
ever saw, with legs only four inches 
high. The soup and rice are in two lit- 
tle red bowls without handles. He 
drinks the soup right from the bowl, for 
they don't use spoons very much in 
Japan, and he must hold the bowl in 
one hand, not two, if he wants to be 
polite— which he does! But to eat the 
rice out of the other bowl he uses two 



House that was Made of Paper 37 

strange little sticks called chop-sticks, 
instead of a fork. 

While he is sitting there all alone at 
the tiny table, a little servant dressed in 
a. kimono, slides back one of the paper 
doors and comes in carrying a tray. 
She puts the tray before the father, and 
then she does the funniest thing: she 
kneels down on the floor, and bows her 
head way over till her nose bumps the 
floor, and she says very politely: " Be- 
stow your distinguished attention to my 
miserable pickles, O master!" So the 
father takes a pickle, which seems a 
strange thing to eat for breakfast, and 
then the little maid bumps her nose to 
the ground once more before she backs 
out of the room. 

You can see by this how very polite 
people are in Japan, where everybody 
bows to everybody else, and kneels down 
to do it, too, quite often. 

But where is the mother, you say? 
And why doesn't she eat breakfast with 
him? Well, mothers never eat with 
fathers in Japan, they politely wait un- 



38 Fifth Story 

til afterwards. Our missionaries are 
changing all that, and some of the men 
who aren't Christians in any other way 
yet, have decided to eat with their wives. 
It certainly does seem much nicer. 

In the room where the father is eat- 
ing, there is a shelf with a row of ugly 
old idols on it, idols with queer long 
heads and ugly faces that the family 
worship every day. The father has 
taught his little son (Ko-i-chan) to bow 
down to these idols and lay offerings of 
tea and rice before them every morning. 
You would not think it possible that 
such a wise-looking father could believe 
that these little brass idols really take 
care of his family if they are worship- 
ped every day, and that they will punish 
families who forget to worship them. 

That is another thing our missionar- 
ies are trying to change in Japan. 



SIXTH STORY 



THE CRADLE THAT 
WALKED ON TWO FEET 

The Japanese sister jumps rope all the 
day, 

And skips 'round the yard in her Japa- 
nese play. 

While tied on her back is her brother, 
dear me ! 

His head is as wobbly as wobbly can be ! 



Something for you to do: You must paint her 
dress blue and sash pink, and remember that "butter- 
fly" in Japanese is "CHO." 

39 



"THE CRADLE-THAT-WALKED- 
ON-TWO-FEET" 

In the queer little, dear little house 
that was made of paper was a "Cradle- 
that- walked- on- two - feet, " but you 
would never, never guess that the cradle 
was really a little girl, a perfectly dar- 
ling little girl in a pink kimono with a 
huge blue sash and big wing-like sleeves. 
Her name was "Cho," and if you could 
have seen her dancing over the tiny 
bridge in the tiny garden you would 
not be at all surprised to know that 

Cho" means Butterfly, for she cer- 
tainly looked exactly like a big pink 
and blue butterfly skipping around. 
She fitted this little verse somebody 
wrote about a little Japanese girl : 

"I like to see her flutter by, 
She looks so like a butterfly." 

But I know you must be wondering 
how a butterfly could ever be a cradle! 

40 



a 



Cradle that Walked on Two Feet 41 

The truth of the matter is that all day 
long the mother of the family expected 
our little Butterfly to take care of the 
wee little baby, who looked so exactly 
like a Japanese doll that our missionar- 
ies in Japan are always surprised when 
they see those cute slanting eyes begin 
to blink, and that cunning wobbly head 
bob up around! Of course it would 
have kept Butterfly at home all the time 
taking care of the baby, if fathers and 
mothers in Japan had not long ago 
thought of the nicest plan: they just 
fastened the baby on the sister's back 
and there he slept all day long. What- 
ever his Cradle-on-two-f eet did, he had 
to do, too ! When she jumped rope, the 
baby jumped rope, and although his 
sleepy little head wobbled around dread- 
fully, he never cried about it. He just 
let it wobble! Which shows you how 
good Japanese children are. 

Butterflv and all her friends loved to 
play ball like this— Butterfly would 
bounce her ball up and down, up and 
down, keeping time by singing a little 



42 Sixth Story 

song. Each time it came up she struck 
it back with her hand, but whenever she 
missed it, then all her friends would 
dash up and mark her face with a piece 
of black charcoal ! Sometimes when she 
had missed a great many times her face 
got as black as ink ! 

One day the mother said she and the 
grandmother were going to take the 
children to see the beautiful cherry 
blossoms which everyone dearly loves in 
Japan. Butterfly put on her very pret- 
tiest kimono and tied on her very best 
sash, then she stood still to be turned 
into a cradle when the baby was tied on 
her back. At the front door everybody 
slipped into their wooden shoes— 'geta/ 
as they are called— and the mother who 
never had worn a hat in all her life 
opened a paper parasol and away they 
all walked to the orchard where the 
cherry trees were in bloom. 

Their wooden shoes made the greatest 
clatter as they walked along. It 
sounded like this: clackety-clack ! 
Clackety-clack ! 



Cradle that Walked on Two Feet 43 

When they got there, the air was 
sweet with the smell of the cherry blos- 
soms and very happy-looking people 
were sitting around looking up at the 
blue sky through the branches. Some 
of them even wrote little verses about 
how much they loved the blossoms and 
fastened them on the tree branches. 
Butterfly carefully picked a branch on 
which there was a whole row of tiny 
pink buds, almost ready to burst into 
bloom. She would carry this home care- 
fully, and would spend a long time try- 
ing to put it in a vase in the very pret- 
tiest way. She would twist it this way 
and that way until it looked just right, 
then she would put the vase on a tiny 
table that stands in a little raised al- 
cove in the nicest room of their house. 
Although she never had been to school, 
and probably might never go, her 
mother thought it was just as necessary 
for her to fix the flowers beautifully as 
your mother thinks it is necessary for 
you to learn to read and write. 

The grandmother and mother wers 



44 Sixth Story 

hungry after their long walk, so they 
went into a teahouse in the garden and 
they all had tea. Oh, yes, of course, 
even the baby! You ought to have 
heard him coo as he gurgled the tea 
down his throat ! 



SEVENTH STORY 

THE TEMPLE THAT HAD FIVE 
ROOFS 




This is the temple that had the five roofs, 
Though the idol inside could never give proofs 
That he heard the big bell, that boomed out so loud, 
Whenever the courtyard was filled with a crowd. 

Something for you to do : Paint the five roofs 
green ; right under each roof paint the woodwork yel- 
low, and make the doorway red. You know about 
how the grass ought to look, and the kimonos, too ! 

45 



"THE TEMPLE-THAT-H AD-FIVE- 
ROOFS" 

Last Sunday we left the " Cradle-that 
-walked-on-Two-Feet, " and who was 
really our little Japanese friend Butter- 
fly, sitting under some cherry blossoms 
drinking tea with her mother and 
grandmother and brother — and of 
course the Baby, too! So today I am 
going to tell you what they did on their 
way home. 

They met the father just as they were 
leaving the cherry orchard, and when 
they were passing a queer, tall, thin 
building that had five roofs, he said: 
"Let us go in the temple and worship 
the honorable Buddha." 

So they went inside the red gateway, 
near which was a great stone trough 
full of clear water, with a long-handled 
wooden dipper floating on it. 

"Come here!" said the father. 
4 6 



Temple That Had Five Roofs 47 

So Butterfly and Ko-i-chan and the 
mother and the grandmother all came 
and stood in a row beside the trough. 
They held out their hands, and the 
father took the dipper, and poured 
water over them. When their hands 
were quite clean, they even rinsed out 
their mouths, too! Then they walked 
to the great door of the temple itself, 
where the father said: "Now we must 
take off our shoes. " 

So they all slipped their toes out of 
their wooden shoes, and went into the 
temple just as the big bell in the court- 
yard rang out with a great boom— b 00m 
—boom— so loud that it made the air 
shiver and shake, and even the tiny bells 
on the eaves of the pagoda tinkled ! 

Inside, the temple was one big 
shadowy room, with tall red columns 
all about. There was another bell to 
ring to wake up the brass idol called 
Buddha, which was quite the roundest, 
homeliest thing you ever saw. The 
father bought a little piece of paper 
from a priest with his prayer written 



48 Seventh Story 

on it, and did something that will seem 
too silly for words to you and me, yet 
it is so sad, too, that we simply cannot 
laugh about it : for he put that tiny 
piece of paper with his prayer written 
on it into his mouth, and he chewed it 
all up into a little wet paper wad. 

Then he took it out of his mouth, and 
threw it at the idol, and he believed, 
just as all the people in Japan believe, 
that if that little wad of paper sticks 
to the idol then the prayer will be 
answered ; but if it falls on the ground, 
then they think the idol is not willing 
to answer the prayer. And oh dear! 
this paper prayer did fall on the ground, 
and Butterfly's father left the-pagoda- 
that-had-five-roofs, feeling quite un- 
happy. 

On the paper prayer was written 
these words: " Grant that my miserable 
family may dwell in happiness, O 
Buddha, and that my sons may be brave 
and strong, and serve their country." 

It seems so very queer that he thought 
a big brass idol, who was nothing but a 



Temple That Had Five Roofs 49 

huge ugly doll, could answer a prayer. 
Because you and I know that there is 
only one thing that can make a family 
really happy, and only one thing that 
can make sons brave and strong in the 
finest way,— and that one thing is the 
love of Jesus in their hearts. 

So while the Pagoda-that-had-five- 
roofs is very pretty to look at, with its 
green roofs and its red door, yet I wish 
there was no ugly Buddha inside it, 
don't you? 



EIGHTH STORY 



THE FISH THAT SWAM IN THE 
AIR! 




"If I had my wish 
For each Japanese fish 

I tell you what it would be:— 
That each boy in Japan, 
Like young Ko-i-chan, 

Should love Christian-i-ty." 

Something for you to do: Color the fish red, and 
choose your own color for Ko-i-chan's kimono and 



So 






"THE FISH-THAT-SWAM-IN- 
THE-AIR" 

The last few Sundays we have heard 
a good deal about little Butterfly, and 
the baby brother that had his cradle on 
her back, so today I thought I would 
tell you about her older brother Ko-i- 
chan, who wears a kimono and a sash, 
too, and has big sleeves like butterfly 
wings. These sleeves are really pockets, 
you know, just imagine having pockets 
two feet long ! Ivo-i-chan keeps lots of 
things in them: he has a paper hand- 
kerchief, a few marbles, a ball, and 
when he goes to school he carries a tiny 
stove in his sleeve, a very funny place 
for a stove, don't you think so? But, 
you see, there are no furnaces in the 
houses that are made of paper, and it 
gets ever so cold ! 

Everybody made a great deal of Ko-i- 
chan because he was a boy, and I 

51 



52 Eighth Story 

thought you might like to hear about 
his birthday. There is one very, very 
queer thing about birthdays in Japan 
—all the little girls have theirs on the 
very same day in March, and all the 
little boys have theirs on the fifth day 
of May! And even if there should be a 
brother and sister who were t iritis, he 
would have to have his birthday in May, 
while she had hers in March ! 

You can easily know when the birth- 
day of all the boys in Japan has come, 
because in front of every house where 
a boy lives a tall pole is set up, and at 
the top of the pole large paper fish are 
fastened,— a fish for each boy who lives 
in the house. Each paper fish has a 
great round mouth and round eyes, and 
a string is fastened to the mouth so that 
when the wind blows into the mouth it 
fills the whole fish until it bobs around 
and flaps its paper fins exactly as if it 
were alive and swimming in the air! 

Of course it was the baby boy's birth- 
day, too, so on the pole in front of Ko- 
i-chan's dear little, queer little house 



Fish That Swam in the Air 53 

was a huge pole with two big paper 
fishes swimming around up in the air— 
which showed everybody in the village 
that two boys lived in the house. 

Ko-i-chan knew that the huge fishes 
were the kind called carps, but he was 
not at all sure why they always chose 
that kind for the flag poles. So he did 
just exactly w r hat you and I would do, 
he asked a question : 

1 'Honorable father ," he said, "why do 
all the boys have carps on their poles ?" 

" Because the carp is a very plucky 
sort of fish," answered the father, "he 
isn't a lazy fish that only wants to swim 
down stream with the water. He swims 
up the rivers, against the water, and he 
even jumps up the water falls. That's 
the way I want you to be, I want your 
life to be brave and strong like the 
carp." 

Then his father got out a lot of tiny 
wooden soldiers, enough for a whole 
army, there were toy guns, too. Ko-i- 
chan set the soldiers up in a row as if 
they were marching. There were ever 



54 Eighth Story 

and ever so many flags, too, for the 
boys' birthday is always called the Feast 
of Flags. The Japanese flag is all 
white with a big red ball in the center. 

While Ko-i-chan was playing with his 
soldiers and his flags there was a caller 
at their house who interested the whole 
family very much. It was a lady with 
blue eyes, and perhaps you can guess 
that she is our missionary, yours and 
mine, because the money you and I give 
for missions has sent her to Japan to 
tell the people there about God. 

Our Mrs. Missionary paid a very 
short call at the dear little, queer little 
house that was made of paper, partly 
because she had a great many other calls 
to make, and partly because she simply 
could not get used to sitting on the floor ! 
But she stayed long enough to admire 
the wooden soldiers and the flags and 
the huge paper fishes, she drank a cup 
of tea and tied up all the cookies that 
she couldn't eat in her handkerchief, 
the way it is polite to do in Japan. You 
can just imagine what fun it was for 



Fish That Swam in the Air 55 

her little daughter when Mrs. Mission- 
ary came home from making calls ! 

But before our missionary left she 
invited them all to come to her house 
the next day. She bowed very politely to 
the grandmother, the mother, Butterfly, 
Ko-i-chan and the Baby to show she 
meant each one of them. They bowed 
back very politely, and Butterfly leaned 
so far over she bumped her nose to the 
ground. Then our missionary stood up, 
and her knees felt so stiff and prickly 
she knew they had gone to sleep. But 
our Japanese family were far too polite 
to smile. They kept bowing and bow- 
ing, promising to visit her tomorrow, 
and thanking her for honoring their 
poor house with her distinguished 
presence ! 



NINTH STORY 



THE LITTLE GIRL WHO 
TURNED THE SHOES 
AROUND 




"The little children of Japan 
Wear mittens on their feet, 
They wear no hats at all to go 
A-walking on the street. 
And wooden stilts for overshoes 
They wear out on the avenues." 

Something for you to do: This time you can 
choose any of the colors you love the best for their 
pretty kimonos. 

*6 



"THE LITTLE GIRL- WHO- 
TURNED-THE-SHOES- 
AROTTKD" 

Last Sunday perhaps you remember 
that our Mrs. Missionary paid a visit 
to the dear little, queer little house-that- 
was-made-of-paper to invite all the f am- 
iiv to visit her the next da v. I am sure 
you want to know about that visit, and 
about Mrs. Missionary and her tiny 
daughter, Miss Missionary, whose 
special job at home was tiirning the 
shoes around! Of course you don't 
know what in the world I mean, so I 
will have to tell you in a minute,— after 
the company arrives ! 

Such scrubbing and rubbing as went 
on before Butterfly and Ko-i-chan and 
the Baby were ready! The Japanese 
people are really very fond of taking 
the hottest baths you ever dreamed of,, 
the water was so boiling hot that But- 
terfly and Ko-i-chan simply squealed* 

57 



58 Ninth Story 

They stood in a regular barrel full of 
this steaming water, there was a little 
stove right in the side of the barrel to 
heat it up. 

But finally they were all dressed in 
their very nicest kimonos and sashes, 
the Baby was gurgling with delight as 
they slid back the paper screen door and 
slipped into their wooden shoes, wait- 
ing there for them! Then clickety- 
clack, clickety-clack, they began clatter- 
ing along the street toward Mrs. Mis- 
sionary's house; the Baby went sound 
asleep, and how his head did wobble 
as his cradle-that-walked-on-two-feet 
scuffled along ! 

"Here we are," said the mother, so 
they stopped and knocked at our Mrs. 
Missionary's front door, and while they 
waited of course they slipped their feet 
out of their wooden shoes, and left them 
on the door step, while they paddled 
softly into the house in their stockings. 
You should have seen everybody bowing 
to everybody else and saying "Olfiayo" 
(sounds like "Ohio") which means 



Girl Who Turned the Shoes Around 59 

"How do you do?" in Japanese. Our 
Mrs. Missionary tried to get them to 
sit on the chairs and sofa, but no ! they 
liked sitting on the floor the best, thank 
you! 

And meanwhile where is the tiny Miss 
Missionary ? Oh, she is doing her very 
own little job out on the front door- 
step where all the wooden clogs were 
left! For of course when the visitors 
slipped out of their shoes, they left 
them pointing toward the door, and our 
tiny Miss Missionary was out there 
turning them around, so they would 
point toward the street :— Then when 
the guests were ready to leave they 
could slip into their shoes and w T alk 
right off, for it would be ever and ever 
so impolite in Japan for guests to have 
to turn their own shoes around on the 
doorstep. Wasn't that a funny job for 
little Miss Missionary? 

After it was all nicely done, she came 
into the parlor and bowed to everybody 
all over again, and felt very shy to find 
everyone looking at her light curly hair. 



60 Ninth Story 

Butterfly's mother said to our Mrs. 
Missionary: "It must make you very 
unhappy to have had the honorable hair 
of your small daughter fade so quickly, 
even her honorable eyes have lost their 
brown color V 

Then how little Miss Missionary did 
giggle ! 

"I growed that way!" she said, "I 
like having curly golden hair and blue 
eyes. I like it better than straight 
black hair and brown eyes." 

Then Butterfly giggled, and Ko-i- 
chan giggled, and the Baby gurgled a 
cute Japanese coo, and suddenly every- 
body felt very much at home. They 
wanted to see how you played on that 
queer box called a piano, so Mrs. Mis- 
sionary played a little tune that you and 
I know very well, while Miss Mission- 
ary sang the dear words: "Jesus loves 
me, this I know, For the Bible tells me 
so." 

When the song was over, Mrs. Mis- 
sionary asked them if they knew about 
Jesus, and they said no they had never 



Girl Who Turned the Shoes Around 61 

even heard the name before. Think of 
that! 

So then Mrs. Missionary spent a 
whole hour telling them about Christ- 
mas, Jesus' Birthday, and about how 
the Baby in the manger grew up, and 
how much good He did— dear me! the 
grandmother and the others could have 
listened forever! 

Our Mrs. Missionary promised to 
come very soon to tell them more about 
Jesus, she asked them to come to our 
church, too, and then just before they 
left she went into another room and 
wrapped a Japanese Bible in a square 
colored silk, like a handkerchief, the 
way Japanese people wrap their pack- 
ages, and she gave it to the grand- 
mother, with a bow T : ' ' This is the honor- 
able book that tells about Jesus. Per- 
haps you will like to read it when you 
get home." 

The grandmother sighed as she bowed 
politely: "I do not know how to read, 
and my daughter cannot read, but Ko-i- 
chan goes to school, he shall read to us." 



62 Ninth Story 

Then , little Miss Missionary piped 
up: ''Oh, mother dear, do let V have 
Butterfly come to our school every day, 
then she won't have to grow up and not 
know how to read!" 

Everybody liked the idea, and if But- 
terfly's father would only say "yes/ 
then perhaps Butterfly could start in 
the very next day. So they bowed to 
each other again and went to the door 
where their shoes were politely turned 
'round facing the street! 



TENTH STORY 

THE MAN WHO WAS A HORSE 
ALL DAY 




iLii^ 



This is the man who played horse all day : — 

A queer kind of horse, for he often would say: 

" Where will you go?" and "How long will you stay?" 



Something for yoit to do : Taint the wheels of the 
little carriage red and the rest of it brown. Choose 
any color you like for the children's kimonos. The 
"Horse" usually wears a blue coat and a yellow straw 
hat! 



63 



"THE MAN-WHO-WAS-A-HORSE- 
ALL-DAY" 

Do you remember the story we had 
last Sunday about Butterfly and Ko-i- 
chan visiting our Mrs. Missionary, and 
how it was decided that Butterfly 
should go to our very own school, the 
school which your money and my money 
pays for in Japan? 

Today your picture shows Butterfly 
and Ko-i-chan on their way to school 
in a very funny-looking carriage, 
drawn by a man-who-plays-horse-all- 
day! The funny carriage is called a 
jinrikisha— will you please say that 
word with me: " jin-rik-isJia" — and it 
only holds one grown-up person, al- 
though there is plenty of room for two 
children, as you see. 

The father decided it was a great deal 
too far for Butterfly to walk the first 

64 



Man Who Was a Horse All Day 65 

few days, so he hired a jinrikisha, and 
off the children started, as happy as 
happy could be ! 

The man - who - was - a - horse - all - day 
trotted along and felt happy, too ; really 
he was an unusually nice kind of a 
horse, because when you talked to him. 
he could talk hack! 

Butterfly said to him: "You may 
drive me to the Christian School— I 
really think I am going to learn to 
read! That will be wonderful." 

Then the man-who-was-a-horse-all- 
day said over his shoulder: "I am a 
Christian now' and I have one poor lit- 
tle daughter in that school myself, she 
can read and sing as well as any boy!" 

"And does she know the story about 
Jesus which the honorable white teacher 
tells?" 

"Oh, yes!' 5 answered the nice man- 
who-was-a-horse-all-day, "she knows all 
the stories about Jesus, she comes home 
from school and tells her mother and 
me all about Him, so we know the 
stories, too. Now that we belong to the 



66 Tenth Story 

Christian Church we are the happiest 
family in all Japan!" 

" We are r-ather happy in our family, 
I guess," said Butterfly, "all but father. 
For the other day his paper prayer did 
not stick to the honorable Buddha." 

Then the man-who-was-a-horse-all- 
day said: "When you learn more about 
Jesus, you must tell your honorable 
father, then he will know how foolish 
paper prayers and stone idols are. I 
used to pray to the idols, too, until my 
little girl learned about Jesus at 
school." 

All this interested Butterfly very 
much, and when they got to the school 
she was simply jumping up and down 
on the seat! But once inside the big 
strange building, she felt very shy, for 
there were so many little girls all look- 
ing at her. She fell on her knees and 
bowed way over until her nose bumped 
the floor before our Miss Missionary, 
the teacher. Then all the girls sang her 
a welcome song, and that was the way 
her wonderful morning began. 



Man Who Was a Horse All Day 67 

In Japan they learn arithmetic with 
beads strung on a wire; and they learn 
to write with a brush, instead of a pen; 
and the writing paper comes in rolls, 
instead of sheets as ours does Butter- 
fly was very anxious not to make any 
mistakes, but of course she did, because 
she had never been in school before. 
The little girl who sat next to her on the 
floor was the daughter of the nice man- 
who-was-a-horse-all-day, and because 
she was a Christian now she never 
laughed at any of these mistakes, or at 
the funny big blots she made, but she 
tried very hard to help Butterfly. 

After school our Miss Missionary, the 
teacher, rode home with Butterfly in the 
queer grown-up baby-carriage, called a 
jinrikisha, pulled by the man-who-was- 

a - horse - all - dav. Miss Missionarv 

«/ »- 

stopped at Butterfly's house, and left 
some colored picture cards, the kind we 
have in Sunday School; she told the 
grandmother and mother what the pic- 
tures were about: This one was the 
shepherds looking at the Baby Jesus, 



68 Tenth Story 

who was born on Christmas Day; this 
one was Jesus after he was grown up, 
healing sick people; and this one 
showed him blessing little children. 
They all loved the stories and the pic- 
tures. I can't help but be glad we have 
our very own missionaries in Japan— 
aren't you glad, too? 



ELEYTENTH STORY 

THE FAIRY MIRROR 




"Here is the secret this story should tell, 
I hope you have learned it already quite well: — 
We look like the people we care for the most 
When about our own selves we see nothing to boast." 



69 



"THE FAIRY MIRROR 



11 



Once in a while it rains very, very 
hard in Japan, oh dreadfully hard, and 
because their umbrellas were made of 
paper and the skirts of their kimonos 
were long enough to get wet, both But- 
terfly and Ko-i-chan had to stay home 
from school one very rainy day. Their 
faces looked perfectly horrid: there 
were frowns and scowls and tears and 
pouts all over them, and they cried so 
hard that it seemed as if it rained in- 
doors about as hard as it did out-doors! 
I suppose you have made that kind of 
a rain-storm yourselves — ages ago, 
haven't you ? 

Then up spoke the nice Japanese 
grandmother: " Suppose I tell you a 
fairy story," said she; and will you be- 
lieve me, the frowns and the pouts and 
the scowls and the tears faded away in 

70 



The Fairy Mirror 71 

exactly two seconds! Queer, wasn't it? 
This was the way she told them the 
story of the Fairy Mirror, which all 
little Japanese children love : 

H Honorable one, if you will lend me 
your distinguished attention, I will fill 
your worshipful ears with the story of 
a happy little family, who lived in a 
dear little, queer little house next door 
to a pagoda that had five roofs. This 
was many, many years ago. Whenever 
the winds of heaven blew, the bells on 
the eaves of the pagoda tinkled softly, 
and the little family were very happy. 
There was a mother and father and a 
little girl baby. 

"One day as the mother sat in her 
tiny garden beside the tiny lake, her 
husband walked into the garden in a 
great hurry, — he fairly skipped over 
the little white stepping stones. This is 
what he said : ' The distinguished Head 
of my business has ordered me to leave 
this day on a business trip to the Great 
City. I have rushed home to say good- 
bye to you and our little one.' 



72 Eleventh Story 

"He never had left her before, and 
so many tears came into her eyes that 
she could hardly see him as he took the 
baby into his arms and whispered good- 
bye to them both. Then he hurried 
away down the village street, away and 
away, until his figure got smaller and 
smaller in the distance. 

" 'But he will come back before long, 9 
she whispered to the baby she had tied 
on her back, and the baby wobbled its 
head to say 'yes'! In a week he did 
come back again from the Great City, 
with many wonderful stories of the mar- 
velous things he had seen there: great 
big houses, big parks, hundreds of jin- 
rikishas in the streets, huge stores full 
of beautiful things. 

"'See what I bought for you!' he 
said, handing her a present tied up in a 
big handkerchief. She opened it 
quickly, but could not imagine what 
such a strange thing was: for on one 
side it was silver, the handle was silver, 
while the other side was bright and 
smooth and clear. 






The Fairy Mirror 73 

" 'Look in it!' he said, smiling. So 
she looked in. Then he asked her what 
she saw. 'Oh, I see a beautiful lady, a 
very beautiful lady,— indeed, I never 
saw such a pretty face or such smiling 
eyes or such a lovely blue kimono, al- 
though it really seems to be just the 
color of the one I have on, isn't that 
strange % ' 

"Then how he did laugh! For per- 
haps you have guessed that his present 
was a mirror; but at that time very 
few people in Japan had ever seen a 
looking-glass, so that is why she did 
not know that the beautiful lady she 
saw in the glass - was not a picture, but 
her very own self! Of course he told 
her her mistake, and then she laughed, 
too; only after that she got into the 
habit of carrying the precious mirror 
in the long sleeve of her kimono, so that 
she could look at herself just as often 
as she wanted. Every time she looked 
at herself she thought: 'I certainly am 
very beautiful ! ' Then one day she said : 
' I will put the mirror away for I am 



74 Eleventh Story 

getting vain, and the gods will be en- 
vious of me. ' 

"So she hid the mirror away, and for 
years and years she forgot all about it. 
Her baby grew up into a dear little 
girl, and then into a beautiful young 
lady, who looked exactly like her 
mother, although she never knew it! 
And they were all very happy. 

"But the moon is not always round, 
and flowers are not always in blossom, 
and sorrow came to this family, for the 
dear little mother was so very sick that 
the doctor ' threw away the spoon/ 
which means he gave up hope of her 
getting well again. They offered rice 
and incense to the idol, but it did no 
good. So the mother said to her 
daughter: ' Cherished one, I shall soon 
have departed to live with my ancestors, 
when I am dead I know you will miss 
me, so I am going to leave this present 
with you. "When I am gone and you are 
lonely, look at it and you will see my 
face.' 

"So after the dear little mother had 



The Fairy Mirror 75 

died, the daughter looked every day at 
the present her mother left her, which 
was the old, old mirror, of course. And 
there she always saw her mothers dear 
face. Sometimes when she felt sad, her 
mother's face looked sad, too; when she 
was smiling, her dear mother's face 
smiled, too. Only instead of looking 
pale and sick and tired the way her 
mother had looked for years, the face 
she saw was lovely and rosy. The 
young girl whispered to it : ' Cherished 
mother, it makes happiness bloom in 
my mind to see you looking so well. 
I miss you, dear one, but every day I 
arrange the flowers and serve the tea 
the way you taught me.' 

' ' The father heard his daughter talk- 
ing to some unseen person, so one day he 
said: 'To whom are you talking, my 
daughter?' 

" 'I am talking to the honored 
mother, ' she said, ' she gave me this mir- 
ror, and every day I look in and see her, 
and I talk to her. Although I never can 
hear her answer me, I know she tries, 



76 Eleventh Story 

for I see her lips moving and her eyes 
smiling at me.' 

''The father patted her on the head, 
but he did not tell her that the lovely 
face she saw in the mirror was her very 
otvn, growing more and more like her 
dear mother's every day, because she 
was trying so hard to live as her mother 
wanted her to live." 

When the grandmother finished But- 
terfly said: "Oh, then it wasn't a fairy 
mirror, at all, was it?" 

"Of course not!" said Ko-i-chan, "It 
was just an every day mirror, but it 
worked magic on her, didn't it, honor- 
able grandmother." 

"Indeed it did," said the grand* 
mother nodding. "And she never grew 
vain or conceited, either." 






TWELFTH STORY 

MONKEY TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES 




These are the children in lovely Japan — 
Butterfly, Baby and nice Ko-i-chan, 
About whom I've told you as well as I can. 



77 



" MONKEY TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES" 

I am sure you have been to the Zoo 
and seen the funny little monkeys jump- 
ing around and looking so sober and 
wise ; but perhaps you never knew that 
over in Japan, where Butterfly and Ko- 
i-chan live, there are monkeys hop- 
ping around in the bamboo trees in their 
garden, chattering away in monkey 
language, day and night. 

"I wish I knew what the monkeys 
talked about all the time," said Butter- 
fly to her grandmother. 

Without saying a word the grand- 
mother opened a cabinet and took out 
three carved monkeys which she gave 
to Butterfly. One monkey had his 
hands over his eyes, which meant "See 
no evil"; the second monkey had his 
hands over his ears, which meant "Hear 
no evil" ; and the third monkey had his 

78 



Monkey Tails and Other Tales 79 

hands over his mouth which meant 
"Speak no evil." 

Ko-i-ehan and Butterfly loved the 
three monkeys, and the grandmother 
said she hoped they would always re- 
member to do what the monkeys taught ; 
never to see anything bad unless they 
could do something to help, never to 
hear anything untrue unless they could 
correct it, and above all, never to say 
anything untrue themselves. 

"Well, one day as Butterfly was walk- 
ing home from our very own mission 
school she passed a queer ugly idol sit- 
ting in a shrine beside the road, and 
there she saw her mother kneeling and 
putting a tiny little apron of the baby's 
around the neck of the idol. She piled 
up some small stones at the idol's feet, 
crying big hot tears all the time.. 

"Why, honorable mother," said But- 
terflv, "what can be the matter? What 
are you doing all this for?" 

"Our precious baby is terribly sick," 
cried the mother, " I do not think he can 
live, so I am giving the honorable idol 



8o Twelfth Story 

these playthings to amuse him. Per- 
haps he may enjoy making our baby 
well. ' ' Then she rubbed the stomach of 
the stone idol because that was where 
the baby at home was sick. 

Butterfly knew that a little Japanese 
girl should never tell her mother that 
she was doing wrong, but Butterfly 
knew about the real God now and about 
Jesus, and she knew this idol was noth- 
ing at all. Yet she thought it would be 
impolite to tell her mother. So she 
looked at the ugly stone idol called Jizo 
Sama, and thought how silly he looked 
all dressed up in the baby's apron, then 
she heard a chattering up in the tree 
above her. She looked up and there sat 
a wise old monkey looking down at her. 
He scratched his head, and then he put 
his hands over his eyes. 

"See no evil!" Butterfly whispered 
to herself, then she remembered her 
grandmother had said:" Unless you can 
help." 

So Butterfly felt suddenly very 
brave: "Dear honorable mother," she 



Monkey Tails and Other Tales 81 

said, "at the mission school we learn 
that these idols are no good at all, be- 
cause they are only wood and stone. 
The true God can't be seen, but He 
hears prayers. He doesn't like to see us 
worshiping idols." Then down in her 
heart she prayed a little prayer that 
Jesus would teach them somehow the 
way to make their dear baby get well. 

The mother walked sadly home ; but 
there in front of their dear little, queer 
little house was our Mrs. Missionary 
just getting out of her jinrikisha, which 
was pulled by the man-who-was-a-horse- 
all-day. Ko-i-chan had run over to her 
house to get her, and here she was with 
hot water bottles and some bottles of 
medicine! The mother told what she 
had done for the baby— about the apron 
on the idol, and the stones, and rubbing 
the idol's stomach. 

"Not a bit of good!" said our Mrs. 
Missionary, rushing in where the poor 
pale baby was having a dreadful time, 
wailing the thinnest, forlornest little 
wail you ever heard. 



82 Twelfth Story 

Now our Mrs. Missionary knew a 
good deal about babies, because God had 
given her some of her very own to bring 
up, and she had lived in Christian lands 
where most mothers learn the right way 
to bring babies up. For it really is very 
queer, but the mothers who live in lands 
where people are not Christians make 
dreadful mistakes in bringing up 
babies ! 

So first of all our Mrs. Missionary 
asked what the baby had had to eat. 
When she found he had had candied 
peas and beans, a pickle and some tea, 
she sighed a funny hopeless sigh, the 
way you do when you wish people had 
better sense, only you don't dare tell 
them so. 

She filled the hot-water bottle, and 
gave the baby some medicine, she softly 
rubbed the baby and sang a nice sleepy 
lullabye, very soft and low: 

"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, 
The little Lord Jesus lay down his 
sweet head, 






Monkey Tails and Other Tales 83 

The stars in the sky looked down where 

he lay. 
The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the 

hay!" 

Over and over she crooned it, soft 
and drowsy; the nice hot water bottle, 
and the medicine and that gentle voice, 
quieted the baby and he went to sleep. 
Then he had more medicine, and more 
rubbing— oh very gentle rubbing. 

The grandmother and the mother 
thought it was perfectly wonderful, but 
our missionary knew it was just plain, 
everyday Common-sense, the kind your 
mother and my mother had, because 
they lived in a Christian land. So right 
then and there she said: "Once a week 
at our church I am going to have a 
mother's meeting, so you can learn these 
simple things to do for your baby. Will 
you come?" 

Of course they said "Yes," and they 
said they would bring their neighbors, 
too. 

Just then the father came in the 



84 Twelfth Story 

room. When he saw our Mrs. Mission- 
ary he reached in his big sleeve and 
pulled out the Bible which she had 
given the family weeks before when 
they visited her. 

"I have been reading this book," he 
said, "and I believe it. I have no use 
for our idols any more. I desire that 
we shall all be Christians." 

You never saw a happier family. 
Ko-i-chan shouted "Banzai" which 
means "Hurrah" in English. But all 
the time Butterfly remembered the 
wise old monkey with his hands over 
his eyes, who had dared her to "speak 
up!" 









THIRTEENTH STORY 

COTTON TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES 




"Jemima's face is black as ink, 
Her hair is curled with many a kink, 
And yet she's very nice, I think! 
It's no surprise to me that she 
Is just as bright as bright can be. 
In school she learns the very rules 
They teach in all the white folks' schools." 



Something for you to do : I think Jemima would 
like to have you paint her dress red. I am afraid the 
patch is another color, though ! You can decide what 
v ou think it is! 

85 



" COTTON TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES" 

There are some members of God's 
Family whose skins are very, very 
black, who live here in America with us, 
down South where the cotton grows. I 
suppose every one of you has seen a 
negro, for that is the name we give to 
these black members of God's Family. 
Sometimes I have heard very rude boys 
and girls call these black people " nig- 
gers," but I don't believe that you and 
I will ever want to make the least bit of 
fun of them as long as we remember that 
God loves them just exactly as well as 
He loves you and me, and that He likes 
the color of their skin just as well as he 
likes ours. 

Down South there are really more 
negroes than white people, and lots of 
them work on great big farms called 
plantations where the cotton plants are 
raised. 

86 



Cotton Tails and Other Tales 87 

Once there was a cute little black girl 
named Jemima whose mother was busy 
all day picking off the soft white wads 
of cotton. Jemima loved to sit in the 
shade of a big tree and watch her mother 
and the other women. They wore red 
bandana handkerchiefs tied on their 
heads, and all morning long she could 
see red heads bobbing up and down. 
Every day she tried to make friends 
with two shy little molly cottontail rab- 
bits who lived in the bushes near there. 

" You jes' come here and play with 
me, you molly cottontails, you!" she 
begged. But the minute the rabbits 
heard her voice, off they scampered with 
such big leaps that all she could see of 
them was their funny little white tails. 

One morning a very nice white lady 
walked by. She stopped to watch the 
pickers. When she saw Jemima, she 
asked her to go and get her one of the 
little cotton balls, so over Jemima 
trotted. When she came back, the lady 
said: "I wonder if you wouldn't like to 



88 Thirteenth Story 

come to my school with me this morn- 
ing f" 

I wish you could have seen Jemima's 
black eyes roll around in excitement and 
her white teeth show as she grinned. 

' ' Deedy I would like to ! Yes ma'am! 
You jes' wait till I go tell mammy. " 

So she skipped over to the red ban- 
dana handkerchief she could see way 
off, which she knew belonged to her 
mother. Her mother stood up straight 
a minute, to rest her tired back. 

"That's real nice of the lady, I'm 
shore, Jemima. Mind you be a good 
gal! Goodbye Honey!" 

I'm afraid you wouldn't have liked 
that schoolhouse very much, although it 
seemed very fine to Jemima and the 
other little black girls and boys. They 
had to sit on very hard benches so far 
from the floor that their short little legs 
dangled way up in the air ! There were 
no desks, either,— but then, none of the 
little black girls and boys knew that you 
ought to have desks in school, so they 
were very happy without them ! 



Cotton Tails and Other Tales 89 

You see, our Government does not 
have schools in little out-of-the-way vil- 
lages where the plantations are, so this 
missionary teacher was starting a school 
for her church. I think when the mem- 
bers of her church at home know more 
about what she is doing they will want 
to send her money right away for desks 
and chairs with short legs ! 

The day Jemima went there the 
teacher said she was going to tell them a 
story about what the cotton plant grew 
into, so she put down on the table the 
soft white cotton ball which Jemima 
had picked for her. Then she put down 
a spool of white cotton, then a piece of 
white muslin, then a piece of paper, then 
a Bible. 

She had some verses written on the 
blackboard, which she now read out 
loud : 

"Sing, oh, sing, for the cotton plant, 
Bravely may it grow, 
Bearing in its seeded pod 
Cotton white as snow ! 



90 Thirteenth Story 

Spin the cotton into thread; 
Weave it on the loom; 
Wear it now, dear little child 
In your happy home. 

When you've worn it long and well 
Will it worthless be ? 
No, a book made from this dress 
You yet, in time, may see. 

Sort the rags and grind the pulp; 
Make the paper fair; 
Now it only waits for words 
To be printed there. 

Thoughts from God to man sent down 
May these pages show. 
Sing, oh ! sing, for the cotton plant ! 
Bravely may it grow!" 

When she got through, every child 
there understood how the cotton balls 
their dear black mammies were pick- 
ing out in the fields would be turned 
into thread some day, and the thread 
would be woven into cloth for dresses, 



Cotton Tails and Other Tales 91 

and when the dresses were nothing but 
rags, the rags would be made into paper' 
and on the paper would be printed the 
Bible. 

I think it was a beautiful thing for 
this missionary to teach these cute little 
black children every day, don't you? 



FOURTEENTH STORY 

THE HOUSE THAT WAS BUILT 
IN HALF AN HOUR 




"In order to have a roof overhead, 

I'm built in a hurry," the little house said, 

"The days are so hot, and the nights are so warm, 

I'm really most used in time of a storm." 



Something for you to do : Mud walls are brown 
in color, and palm leaves are green, so now you know 
just how to paint this picture, I think L 



92 



"THE HOUSE-THAT- WAS-BUILT- 
IN-H ALF- AN-HOUR ' ' 

Only a few of the Black members of 
God's Family live in America, like Je- 
mima about whom I told you last Sun- 
day ; all the rest of the Black Family, 
oh, millions and millions of them, live 
far across the sea in a big country called 
Africa. Although the Black people in 
Africa look exactly like the Black people 
in America, whom you and I can see 
almost any day on our streets, still they 
dress so differently, and talk so differ- 
ently, and live so differently that I 
thought you would like to hear about 
them and meet one of the families. 

Let's begin with the house ! That cer- 
tainly looks different from any house in 
America, for it is very low, like a bee- 
hive, it has no windows and even the 
doorway is so low that the grown-up 
people have to stoop way over to get in. 

93 



94 Fourteenth Story 

Inside there is no floor but the Earth, 
and there are no tables or chairs or beds, 
either! Just a few pots standing 
around, one is full of water and another 
has corn in it ! 

I can just hear you saving: "Well, 
this is a strange house ! ' ' 

So now is the time to tell you it was 
built in half an hour! Think of that! 
For half an hour is only half the time 
we sit in Sunday school! The houses 
you and I live in take weeks and months 
to build, because we have cellars, and 
floors, and windows, and an upstairs 
and a downstairs, with thick solid walls 
everywhere. But when the black father 
of a black family in Africa wants a new 
house he cuts down four nice straight 
bamboo trees. He makes four poles 
from these and sets them up in the 
Earth for the four corners of his 
house. 

Then the mother does the rest ! She 
lays some big leaves from the bamboo 
tree along the sides, and she plasters 
them with mud from the village street. 



House Built in Half an Hour 95 

It is so hot in Africa that the mud walls 
dry out right away. Then for a roof 
she carefully lays on layer after layer 
of big bamboo leaves and some straw, 
too, so the rain can't soak through. And 
behold ! the house is done ! 

There is almost always a nice fat 
black baby inside these funny houses— 
the baby never wears any clothes, it 
doesn't have to, because the weather is 
always so hot in Africa. There is an 
elephant's tooth tied by a string around 
the baby's neck, but that is not to help 
keep him warm, of course, but to protect 
him from evil spirits. 

"What are evil spirits?" I hear you 
asking. 

I'm glad to say there really and truly 
are no such thing in God's World, of 
course; but oh dear! the black people 
don't know about God, so they are afraid 
of His wind and His rustling palm 
leaves, of His animals and His rivers. 
They think a dreadful spirit lives in 
everything they can see, and if they 
don't wear a charm around their necks, 



96 Fourteenth Story 

like the black baby had, then the evil 
spirit will hurt them. It is all very fool- 
ish for them to be afraid, but they don't 
know any better. 

The mother and father hardly wear 
any clothes, either, only on their arms 
and faces they have some queer-looking 
marks which they cut right into their 
black skins on purpose, because they 
think it is very beautiful to have colored 
tattoo patterns all over them. Just the 
way you and I think it is very beautiful 
to have colored patterns embroidered on 
the dresses we wear. Our dresses wear 
out, even the ones we like the best ; but 
their skins never wear out, of course, 
so they always have the patterns on 
their arms and faces! 

There is a dear little black girl named 
"Rustling Grass " living in the hut, and 
a little boy called "Lazy Legs"; of 
course this is what their names mean in 
English, they sound quite different in 
the African language, for Rustling 
Grass is "CHIKONDAWANGA" and 
Lazy Legs is "NWAEKE," names en- 



House Built in Half an Hour 97 

tirely too hard for us to pronounce very 
often ! 

All day long you could hear the patter 
of bare black feet and the tinkle of ban- 
gles and beads as Rustling Grass trotted 
around with her mother. The mother 
wore a great big basket on her back, so 
Rustling Grass had a smaller basket on 
Iter back, fastened with a strap over her 
forehead. Something was always in her 
basket, perhaps a heavy jug of water,— 
really too heavy for her to carry. It 
makes her bend way over until her back 
is tired. 

These little black children have no 
toys in their hut, and no toy stores in 
all Africa, but come outside and we shall 
find that Someone— the Friend of Lit- 
tle Children, surely— has been filling 
their whole world with playthings for 
little black children : long narrow palm 
leaves which float on the river like tiny 
canoes, little round nuts for cups to 
play house with, bamboo bark to build 
little houses : God has packed His World 
full of things for the little black chil- 



98 House Built in Half an Hour 

dren, but the black father and mother 
do not let Bustling Grass and Lazy Legs 
play very long. 

No, they do quite hard things when 
they are still young. Lazy Legs helps 
set traps to catch the wild animals which 
they will eat; or he climbs trees and 
helps gather the milky sap of India 
rubber, while Rustling Grass gathers 
firewood and learns to plant seeds and 
care for vegetables. But all the time, 
morning, noon and night they see some- 
thing in God's beautiful World to be 
afraid of: in the pretty twigs, in the 
wings of the birds, in the vegetable 
leaves, or right in the doorway of the 
tiny hut-that- was-built-in-half-an-hour. 
Always afraid that something will hurt 
them! 

How I wish that they knew there is 
nothing to fear, and that in God's 
World each bird and each leaf and each 
gentle breeze is whispering over and 
over: "God is good!" "God is good!" 



FIFTEENTH STORY 

HOW THE TURTLE SAVED HIS 
LIFE 




O 




<\ 



i 



T^f*** 



Turtles are really so funny to draw 
One hardly can tell a jaw from a claw! 
But if one could draw his brains one could see 
How knowing and wise a Turtle can be! 



99 



"HOW THE TURTLE SAVED HIS 
LIFE" 

There are weeks and weeks in Africa 
when it does nothing but pour down 
rain all day long! They call it the 
Rainy Season. Sometimes we think 
April is rather a rainy uncomfortable 
month here in America, but just think 
how suddenly the sun pops out and the 
World is bright and clear again! But 
in Africa it just keeps right on raining 
and raining. It is horrid and damp 
everywhere, but Lazy Legs and Rust- 
ling Grass forget all about it when their 
mother tells them the old, old stories 
that black mothers have told to little 
black girls and boys ever since there 
were little black girls and boj^s in Af- 
rica. One of these old, old stories which 
everyone liked about the best was called 
"How the Turtle Saved His Life." 

IOO 






How the Turtle Saved His Life 101 

This is the queer jerky way the black 
mother told it, while the rain was pour- 
ing down in torrents out doors : 

"This is the story of the Turtle of 
Koka. A man of Lubi la Suku caught 
a Turtle in the bush. Back he comes 
to his village. The wise men in the Pal- 
aver-House look at his Turtle and say : 
"No good! No good at all! Kill it! " 
"But how- shall we kill it?" asks one. 

The Headman of the village had the 
right to speak first, so he said : ' ' Cut it 
with hatchets ! ' ' 

Then was the Turtle frightened, for 
hatchets and he were not friendly. So 
he spoke up and said : 

"Turtle of Koka 
And hatchet of Koka : 
Hatchet not kill me a bit." 

Next the Headman's son arose, 
brave and strong was he. "Kill him 
with stones/' he said. 

Poor Turtle felt sick with fear, for 



102 Fifteenth Story 

stones and lie were not. friendly. So 
he said by mouth: 

"Turtle of Koka 
And stone of Koka ; 
Stone will not kill me a bit." 

Then a mighty hunter of elephants 
roared at the Headman: "Cast him into 
the fire!" 

Scared Turtle was hot with unhappi- 
ness, for fire and he were not friendly. 
So he said: 

"Turtle of Koka 
And fire of Koka, 
Fire will not kill me a bit." 

Up rose a feeble old fellow, the silly 
one of the village. "Kill him with 
knives," he piped in his squeaky voice. 

Poor Turtle felt out of his head, for 
knives and he were not friendly. But 
he said: 

"Turtle of Koka 
And knife of Koka 
Knife will not kill me a bit." 






How the Turtle Saved His Life 103 

Then all the men in the Palaver- 
House put their heads side by side and 
they whispered: "This Turtle— what 
shall we do with him? How shall we 
kill him if fire and knives, hatchets and 
stones cannot hurt him?" 

Then one little man, quiet and timid, 
spoke up: " There is water in the river. 
Throw him in where deep water flows 
over the rocks. Then he will drown!" 

Then the Turtle changed his song. 
"Woe is me!" he sobbed, "How shall I 
do? I shall surely die in the deep 
water! Oh woe! Oh woe! How can 
my masters be so cruel!" 

So the Headman laughed: "Ha! 
Ha!" said he, "at last we have found 
the way to kill him! Toss him in the 
river, my brothers." 

So they tossed him in the river where 
the water was deep. As the happy Tur- 
tle slid down into the muddy water 
which was his old home, he sang : 

"In water, in my home, 
In water, in my home!" 



104 Fifteenth Story 

Then the villagers said to the Head- 
man: "Turtle has fooled us all! "We 
were going to kill him with hatchet but 
he tells us: ' Hatchets not kill me a bit.' 
But when we spoke of the river, he 
cried: 'Now will I die for sure.' So we 
threw him in— but we saved him! Ha!' 
And now, children, my tale is told — fin- 
ished. 9 ' 

But Rustling Grass said just what lit- 
tle girls all over God's World say to the 
Story Teller: "Just one more! Just 
one more!" 

But the mother has corn to grind for 
the father's cakes, and things to be 
baked, so that is all she tells them to- 
day. Anyhow, they know all her stories 
by heart, because they are so very, very 
old. 






SIXTEENTH STORY 



THE BANANA TREE THAT WAS 
DRESSED UP 




N^ 



"Lord, bless the little children 
So far across the sea, 
The children of dark Africa 
Whom no one loves like Thee !" 

(Selected.) 

Something for you to do : "Rustling Grass" would 
like a red belt around her waist, and I guess you 
know about what color bananas and leaves ought 
to be, but don't forget to leave the towel and ban- 
dages white! 

105 



"THE BANANA-TREE-THAT- 
WAS-DRESSED-UP ' ' 

I am sure you haven't forgotten about 
" Rustling Grass" and "Lazy Legs," 
the little black children in Africa whom 
we met last Sunday, whose real names 
are ' ' CHIKOND AWANGA > ' and 
"NWAEKE." 

Today I have a story about a banana 
tree that grew near their house, which 
was all dressed ap in white cloth ! Think 
of it! The trunk of the tree was 
wrapped in the cloth and the top was 
covered with a towel. A small bundle 
was tied to the tree and a little brass 
bowl was down on the ground at the 
foot of the tree. What do you suppose 
it can all be about ? 

It's like this: Do you remember my 
telling you before that these black peo- 
ple in God's Family were afraid of Evil 

106 



Banana Tree That Was Dressed Up 107 

Spirits all the time? Well, once the 
witch-doctor, who was supposed to 
know all about evil spirits, said to the 
mother of little Rustling Grass: 
"Bananas are taboo to your family— 
you must never eat a banana, or eat any- 
thing that has even been wrapped in the 
big leaf of the banana tree. You must 
tie this sacred bundle on the banana 
tree near your house, and take good 
care of the tree, then maybe the Banana 
tree spirit will not hurt you!" 

So the mother of Rustling Grass told 
her husband all that the witch-doctor 
had said about bananas being taboo in 
their family, that nobody must ever 
dare eat a banana, and so on. The 
father helped her dress up the tree in 
the white cloth and the tow T el, and he 
hung the bundle on the tree and placed 
the white bowl of rice dow r n at the roots. 
They even danced around the tree, hop- 
ing to please the banana tree spirit. And 
Rustling Grass and Lazy Legs were told 
over and over again that they must 
never, never eat a banana or something 



108 Sixteenth Story 

dreadful would surely happen to them. 
They believed every word of it, too, and 
nothing could have made them disobey. 
That is, nothing until a missionary lady 
came to their village ! 

She was the most astonishing person 
they had ever seen, for her skin was 
white like the clouds, and everybody 
else they knew had skin as black as coal ! 
She had eyes as blue as the sky, and 
everybody else they knew had eyes as 
brown as the mud in the village streets. 
So it was no wonder they tagged around 
after her everywhere she went, exactly 
like "Mary had a little lamb "— you 
know % 

Well, when she saw their banana tree 
all dressed up she was ever so surprised, 
and asked them what it all meant. So 
they told her. 

Of course you know what she thought, 
but all she said then was: "Some day 
you will all know better, please God!" 

She started a little school in their 
village— a queer school it was, for the 
walls only went part way up to the 



Banana Tree That Was Dressed Up 109 

leafy roof so that more air could come 
in, and sometimes a naughty monkey 
would climb up and sit on the broken 
wall, blinking solemnly at all those quiet 
black boys and girls learning to write 
and listening to stories of Jesus. 

After school was over the children 
would patter home on their bare feet 
and tell their parents these stories about 
Jesus, and then the fathers would go to 
the Palaver-House of an evening and 
listen to the wise words concerning God 
from this white-teaeher-from-over-the- 
sea. 

Some of the real old men in the vil- 
lage would say: "Oh yes! we all know 
that God made the world— but after He 
made it everybody in Africa knows He 
forgot us. Everybody knows that. He 
just forgot all about us." 

"No! No!" said the missionary 
gently, "He has never forgotten any of 
us for one single littlest minute! He 
sent Jesus to tell us so." 

Then, by the dim light of a lantern 
she would tell them the same dear 



no Sixteenth Story 

stories of Jesus that she had told the 
children in school, and the men would 
nod their heads and say: "If it were 
true, how good it would be!" 

One day Rustling Grass said to her 
brother: "Lazy Legs," she said, "how 
will we ever know for sure that God 
loves us, unless we prove it?" 

"What do you mean?" asked Lazy 
Legs. 

"Well, this is what I mean," said 
Rustling Grass. "The White Lady 
from over the sea says that there are no 
such things as evil spirits, that God 
made everything and takes care of us 
every single minute. Now how will we 
ever know whether there are really 
banana tree spirits or not unless we eat 
a banana and find out what happens?" 

"EAT A BANANA!" gasped Lazy 
Legs, his eyes like saucers, he was so 
surprised. "Oh you wouldn't dare! 
The witch-doctor told us never to eat 
them! The banana tree spirit would 
hurt us " 

"But the White Teacher says there is 



Banana Tree That Was Dressed Up in 

no spirit," said Rustling Grass, won- 
dering what to believe. 

Without another word she climbed up 
the tree, broke off a yellow banana and 
ate it right up ! 

Lazy Legs w r as scared stiff, but ab- 
solutely nothing happened to Rustling 
Grass all that day, so the next day she 
ate another banana! Nothing hap- 
pened that day, so then Lazy Legs him- 
self climbed up and they both ate ba- 
nanas, and nothing at all unusual hap- 
pened to anybody! 

So hand in hand Rustling Grass and 
Lazy Legs went to the Palaver-House 
where their father and some other men 
were talking to the missionary. 

"We have eaten bananas and nothing 
has happened to our family/ ' they said. 
"So we don't believe in the banana tree 
spirit any more." 

But instead of being angry at them, 
their father said to the missionary : " We 
will take the white cloths off the banana 
tree, and we will not put rice in the 
bowl any longer. My family will all 



ii2 Sixteenth Story 

eat bananas again. You must stay here 
and tell us more every day about the 
wonderful God who does not forget us, 
but takes care of us every day." 

So that is the way there came to be 
a tiny church in that village, because 
Rustling Grass dared eat a banana! 






SEVENTEENTH STORY 

ELEPHANT TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES 




'This is an idol so ugly and grim, 

No wonder small boys are afraid of him ! 

It seems very useless to offer him rice 

And even burn incense to make him feel nice.' 



"3 



"ELEPHANT TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES " 

Peehaps you have been in the Zoo 
and have seen a big gray elephant, with 
great floppy ears and a queer long 
trunk, and you must have wondered 
where its real home was. So today I 
am going to tell you a story of an ele- 
phant in India, where elephants live, 
and where all the members of God's 
family have very brown skins and talk 
in a language you and I do not know. 

The strange thing about this elephant 
is that he is not a live elephant at all, 
but is carved out of stone ; yet the little 
boys and girls of India are dreadfully 
afraid of him ! Not because he can bite, 
for as I said he is stone, so he can't 
move one inch, but you will see why 
they are afraid later on. 

There was once a little brown boy in 

India named Ramaswami, whose father 

114 



Elephant Tails and Other Tales 115 

was a goldsmith. In India they 
would say he belonged to the goldsmith 
caste. Everybody in India could tell in 
a minute what caste he belonged to be- 
cause he had a queer mark on his fore- 
head. All the men, women and children 
in the goldsmith caste have it on their 
foreheads, too. How funny it would be 
if people in America were all divided 
into castes with queer marks on their 
foreheads, and you could look at them 
and say: "That man makes leather 
things," or "that boy's father is a 
baker," or "that girl's family have 
always been priests." For in India, 
whatever a Hindu great-great-great- 
grandfather did, everybody else in his 
family has to keep on doing, even down 
to little boys like Ramaswami, who 
knows perfectly well that when he grows 
up he will make gold necklaces and 
bracelets as his father does. 

But unfortunately Ramaswami 's 
father was having some trouble in his 
work ; not because the brown people did 
not buy his bracelets and ear-rings and 



n6 Seventeenth Story 

necklaces! Oh no! they were crazy 
about the pretty things he made, and 
most of the young women even wore 
toe-rings and rings in their noses, 
bought from his shop in the bazaar. 

But perhaps you can see that when a 
design has to be cut into soft yellow 
gold you have to have very good eye- 
sight, and sometimes Ramaswami's poor 
father could hardly see : He would rub 
his eyes, and blink, but instead of help- 
ing everything looked darker than ever. 

"I do hope the gods are not sending 
me blindness I" he said to himself. "It 
is a long time since I have been to the 
temples and taken a present to the 
idols. This very day shall Ramaswami 
and I make a little pilgrimage.' ' 

Now it is going to give you a big 
surprise to know that there are people 
in India who worship elephants! Yes, 
really! For the stone elephant I told 
you about at the beginning of this story 
was an idol, and it was to his shrine that 
Ramaswami and his father made their 
little pilgrimage. 






Elephant Tails and Other Tales 117 

Before they left home Ramaswami's 
mother had woven garlands of bright 
yellow marigolds to hang around the 
stone elephant's neck, and as Rama- 
swami carried them on his arm he asked 
about "Ganesa," which is the elephant- 
god's name. His father told him the 
elephant was the god of prudence and 
policy, two big grown-up words which 
meant that he was supposed to be very 
wise indeed. 

After a long time they reached the 
little temple, and there on a stone plat- 
form, about as high as a table, sat the 
big elephant-god Ganesa. You can see 
from your cards how perfectly hideous 
he was ! Do you see his elephant's head 
and trunk ? His four hands ? And per- 
haps you notice that he is sitting on a 
large stone rat! Although his picture 
is horrid to look at, you can just 
imagine how much worse he seemed to 
poor Ramaswami who actually saw the 
huge black idol ! He saw those terrible 
eyes painted to look very fierce, his 
great white tusk sticking straight out 



n8 Seventeenth Story 

at Ramaswami, his fiery red tongue and 
his big black trunk raised up to one side 
as if to strike a poor little boy ! 

I'm sure I don't blame him for be- 
ing scared stiff, and crying a little bit, 
too, do you ? 

Ramaswami 's father laughed: "He 
won't hurt you, he is stone and cannot 
move. So make your salaam to the 
Lord Ganesa." 

So Ramaswami and his father made 
what they call a "salaam" in India, by 
bowing and touching their hands to 
their foreheads. They hung the mari- 
gold wreaths around the elephant 's neck 
and they poured some ghee, which is 
melted butter, over his head. This w T as 
to put him in a good humor, you know. 
Then Ramaswami 's father rubbed the 
big painted eyes of the elephant, then 
he rubbed his own eyes, and he said: 
"Hear, oh Elephant-god, thou whose 
eyes see far and know everything, make 
well the eyes of thy worshipful slave." 

You would not think anyone could be 
so foolish as to pray to a stone elephant, 






Elephant Tails and Other Tales 119 

yet we cannot laugh about it, for there 
is something in their poor dark hearts 
that makes them want to put their 
hands together and say prayers when 
they are in trouble. Nobody ever told 
them about Jesus, so they made these 
queer gods with their own hands, and 
although the gods were only stone dolls 
really, it was all they had to worship. 
It certainly is all wrong, isn't it? 



EIGHTEENTH STORY 

THE WAY THEY EAT SUPPER 
IN INDIA 




"See them kneel 
To eat their meal 
Off a leaf. 
'Tis very brief, 
Sauce and rice 
They think are nice. 
One thing looks queer :- 
No women here? 
Oh, no, they wait! 
Although they hate 
To find food gone 
That they had hoped 
to feed upon." 



Something for you to do: Paint Ramaswami's 
turban green and his jacket blue. His father's turban 
is white, and his jacket red, his baggy trousers are 
yellow. 



120 



"THE WAY THEY EAT SUPPER 
IN INDIA" 

Last Sunday we had an elephant 
tale about India, do you remember? 
We saw a little boy Ramaswami and 
his father worshiping a perfectly hid- 
eous stone elephant, so that the idol 
would cure the sore eyes of Rama- 
swami 's father. 

Well, that evening they had to walk 
home through the jungle about sunset 
time, and how Ramaswami 's father did 
hurry! For in the jungle things grew 
almost as high as a man's head, and 
so thick together that dreadful animals, 
called tigers, and great snakes, called 
cobras, could easily hide, ready to 
spring out and kill people. Up in the 
branches of the trees lively monkeys 
jumped around and chattered to each 
other, while bright green parrots made 
a dreadful noise squawking ! 

121 



122 Eighteenth Story 

Ramaswami thought it was rather 
exciting in the jungle, still he was not 
sorry when he saw smoke rising from a 
little village in the distance, for he knew 
it was his own village, and that over the 
little smoking fires the evening rice was 
being cooked, and that his mother would 
be glad to see him. 

Sure enough, she ran to the door of 
the little mud hut, saying: "The apple 
of my eye has returned, and the rice is 
boiling in the pot for him." 

So Ramaswami and his father sat 
down on the floor and began their sup- 
per at once. You never knew such a 
queer meal. The very first thing that 
happened was when Ramaswami 's 
mother put a little bit of rice in a tiny 
bowl and told her little daughter to put 
it before a wooden idol that stood on a 
little shelf. Then the mother scooped 
big white balls of rice into the plates, 
but the plates were big green plantain 
leaves ! Yes indeed, fresh green leaves! 
A very easy way to get new dishes, I 
am sure. 



The Way They Eat Supper in India 123 

She poured a brown sauce over the 
rice, and I am glad you don't have to 
eat that sauce, for it is so very hot and 
peppery that it would make great tears 
run down your cheeks ! Neither Rama- 
swami nor his father used knives or 
forks or spoons; oh no! they just 
popped the rice into their mouths with 
their fingers, and soaked up the sauce 
with some hard little cakes. But the 
worst of the whole meal was that Rama- 
swami's mother and sister did not eat 
with him and his father. They just 
waited on him, and then they sat down 
on the floor like human letter Z's, and 
watched the men folk eat and eat and 
eat! They were very nice about it, 
too. Kamaswami's mother thought her 
husband looked very handsome in his 
big white turban and his bright green 
jacket with a broad red belt twisted 
around his hips. You see, she was used 
to waiting until the men were through 
before she could begin eating whatever 
they had left in the brass bowl. 

Sometimes there was very little left, 



124 Eighteenth Story 

because the father and brother had 
eaten too much. Then the mother and 
sister went hungry. So many people 
in India are always hungry, yet every 
day they save a little rice out of the pot 
for the idol, because they are afraid of 
him. 

I don't believe you ever realized be- 
fore what nice things we white mem- 
bers of God's family have to be thank- 
ful for ! Not only dishes and knives and 
forks and chairs,— they are just things; 
but we have love in our families, we 
like to sit down to eat our meals to- 
gether, and if there is not enough to go 
around, why dear me! then we each 
take our proper share! You can't 
imagine your father eating what mother 
and sister ought to have, can you % That 
is what living in a Christian land has 
done for us, and it is only right for 
us to thank God for our daily food at 
each meal because He has given us so 
much. 

After their strange supper Eama- 
swami's father said his eyes hurt him 



The Way They Eat Supper in India 125 

worse than ever, probably because he 
had been walking in the hot sun so long. 
I am sure you would like to whisper 
to him that a doctor could do him more 
good than any hideous elephant idoL 
But of course you do not know yet that 
there was no real doctor in his village, 
nor in the village next to his, nor in the 
village next to that, nor for miles and 
miles and miles! 

To be sure, there were strange Hindu 
men in each village who said they were 
doctors, but when Ramaswami's father 
had gone to the one in his village about 
his sore eyes, what do you suppose he 
did? Why he put a piece of red hot 
iron on top of the father's head to let 
the pain out! Oh, how it hurt! That 
just shows you he didn't know a thing 
about being a doctor, for he only made 
the poor eyes ache still more. So then 
Ramaswami's father tried the elephant- 
god. I do wish he could have a good, 
doctor, don't you? 



NINETEENTH STORY 

A CROCODILE TAIL AND A 
MONKEY TALE 




This 



is 



a 

tale 
That 
of 



course 



isn't 



true 



But 



thought 



it 



might 



be 



amusing 



to 



You! 



126 



"A CROCODILE TAIL AND A 
MONKEY TALE" 

Retold from the "Jatakas" 

Ramaswami's father kept on having 
a terrible pain in his eyes, so that he 
simply could not go to his shop to make 
gold bracelets and necklaces. He stayed 
home, and sat in the shade, with his 
hands over his eyes, and one day he 
told Ramaswami this story which his 
mother had told to him years before, 
when he was a little boy himself: 

"Once there was a great river where 
many Crocodiles lived, and beside the 
river there was a big tree where some 
Monkeys lived. One day a Crocodile 
said to her son : 'My son, catch a monkey 
for me for I want the heart of a monkey 
to eat!' 

" 'But how can I catch a monkey?' 
asked the little Crocodile. 'For I don't 

127 



128 Nineteenth Story 

travel on land, and the Monkeys never 
go in the water?' 

" 'Oh, if you put your wits together 
you'll find a good way/ said his mother. 
So the little Crocodile thought and 
thought. And finally he had a bright 
idea ! 

"He swam to the tree where a Mon- 
key was sitting, looking across the river 
at an island where cocoanuts grew. 

" ' Hello, Monkey!' called the Croco- 
dile, 'come on over to that island with 
me and get a nice cocoanut!' 

" 'But I can't swim!' said the 
Monkey, 'so how can I go?' 

" 'Jump on my back, and I'll take 
you, ' said the Crocodile. So the Monkey 
jumped down on the Crocodile's back, 
and off they went, splash, splash 
through the water. 

" 'This is a fine ride you are giving 
me!' said the happy Monkey. 

" 'I'm glad you like it,' said the 
Crocodile. 'How do you like this?' and 
he swam down way under the water. 

"'Stop! Stop!' spluttered the poor 



Crocodile Tail and a Monkey Tale 129 

Monkey choking, 'what ever made you 
do that?' 

" 'I'm going to drotvn yon, so I can 
take your heart home for my mother 
to eat/ said the Crocodile. 

"But the Monkey was ever so clever. 
This is what he said: 'What, you want 
my heart! How" I do wish you had told 
me, then I would have brought it along.' 

" 'Oh dear!' said the stupid Croco- 
dile, 'have you left it at home in your 
tree ?' 

" 'Yes, it's there, so if you want it, 
you'll have to take me home first. But 
since we are so near to those cocoanuts, 
please take me there first.' 

" 'No! no! Monkey!' said the Croco- 
dile, 'we'll go get your heart first.' So 
back he splashed to the shore. But no 
sooner had the Monkey jumped onto 
the bank than whisk! zip! he was up 
in his tree, looking down at the stupid 
Crocodile as he said: 'My heart is up 
here, silly Crocodile. Come up and get 
it!' 

"The Crocodile was so mad at being 



130 Nineteenth Story 

fooled, that the Monkey thought it 
would be wise to live in another tree 
after that. But the Crocodile saw him 
far down the river, in the new tree by 
the river. 

"Now in the middle of the river was 
another island with cocoanut palms, and 
halfway between the riverbank and the 
island was a very big rock. Every day 
the Crocodile saw the Monkey jump 
from the bank of the river to the rock, 
and then to the island, and he said to 
himself: 'I'll get that Monkey yet, some 
night when he is jumping home!' 

"So all day the Crocodile swam 
around watching the Monkey eat cocoa- 
nuts, then toward night the Crocodile 
crawled out of the water and lay on the 
rock, still as still could be! 

"Pretty soon the Monkey started for 
home, but just before he jumped over 
to the rock he thought: 'How queer 
and high the rock looks tonight! Oh, 
I guess the Crocodile must be on it ! ' 

"But he never let on that he knew 
what it was. He just w 7 ent to the edge 



Crocodile Tail and a Monkey Tale 131 

of the water and cried: 'Hello, Rock!' 

"No answer from the still Crocodile! 
So he called again ! No answer. Then 
the clever Monkey said : 'Why don't you 
answer me tonight, Mr. Rock?' 

"Then the stupid Crocodile said to 
himself: 'Oh! I see! The rock must 
answer the Monkey every night. I'll 
have to answer for the rock this time.' 
So he answered: 'Yes, Monkey, what is 
it?' 

"How the Monkey did laugh then! 
'Why, it's you, Crocodile, is it?' 

" 'Yes,' said the Crocodile, 'I'm 
waiting here to eat you up ! ' 

" 'Oh dear!' groaned the Monkey, 
'I'm caught this time ! Oh well ! Open 
your mouth wide so I can jump right 
into it!' 

"Now, of course, you don't know 
what the Monkey knew, that when 
Crocodiles open their mouths wide, they 
really have to shut their eyes ! So while 
the stupid Crocodile lay on the rock 
with his huge mouth wide open, and his 
eyes tight shut, the Monkey jumped. 



132 Nineteenth Story 

But not into his mouth! Oh dear, no! 
He landed on top of the Crocodile's 
head, and then jumped onto the shore. 
Up he whisked into his tree. 

"When the stupid Crocodile saw the 
trick the clever Monkey had played on 
him he said: 'You are a very wise ani- 
mal. I think I won't waste any time 
trying to catch you again.' 

" 'Oh, won't vouV said the Monkev. 
'I'll keep one eye out for you just the 



same.' 



TWENTIETH STORY 

HOW RAMASWAMI'S FATHER 
CAME TO WEAR SPECTACLES 




Poor Ramaswami was worried, we're told, 
Because his nice father, who made things from gold, 
Had eyes that were aching so terribly hard 
He just had to sit around home in his yard. 
But then came our Doctor, so clever and bright, 
And gave him some glasses, and brought back hia 
sight. 



133 



"HOW RAMASWAMI'S FATHER 
CAME TO WEAR SPECTACLES" 

Last Sunday I told 3^011 what a ter- 
rible pain Ramaswami's father felt in 
his eyes, and how he could not see to 
cut beautiful patterns on bracelets or 
necklaces. Instead, he had to sit home 
day after day in the shade of their little 
mud hut, holding his head in his hands, 
wondering if he ever could see well 
again. 

The whole family were hungry, for 
when a goldsmith cannot work, there is 
no money to buy food. One morning 
Ramaswami's mother cried as she said: 
"Alas! There is no rice for the pot, and 
no food for the stomach. But what 
can we do % It is the will of the idols ! ' ' 

Then Ramaswami made up his mind 
the only thing to do was to pray once 
more to the village idol, and give it a 
present. It was terribly hot weather: 

134 



Ramaswami's Father's Spectacles 135 

all the green grass had withered and 
turned brown, the mud streets had great 
cracks in them where the mud had dried 
into cakes, and even the village well 
had run dry, so that Ramaswami's 
sister had only been able to draw a tea- 
cupful of water in her big stone jar. 

When Ramaswami looked around for 
a present for the idol all he could find 
was this water in the stone jar, so he 
took that in a little brass bowl to the 
temple. There sat the great stone idol, 
motionless as a giant doll. Ramaswami 
timidly knelt and dashed the cool water 
over the idol, as he said: "Give back 
my father's eyes, O Vishnu." In the 
courtyard he saw the sacred temple 
animals with garlands of flowers around 
their necks, and he bowed to them, hop- 
ing each thing he did might please the 
idols. 

Then as he was lazily walking home 
he heard strange singing and saw a 
crowd of people listening to a man talk- 
ing. That man belongs to you and me ! 
He is our missionary, sent over to India 



j^6 Twentieth Story 

by our very own church to spend all 
his time telling the brown people about 
God. 

Of course Ramaswami hurried over 
to find out what was going on. He 
never had seen a white man before, so 
he w 7 riggled right through the crowd 
and got right up close to him. He 
rather liked what our Mr. Missionary 
was saying, but he couldn't help but 
laugh at the queer pieces of glass the 
man wore fastened on his nose! He 
never had seen jewelry like that before. 
So he piped right out: " Sahib! Why 
do you wear pieces of glass fastened on 
your nose?" 

Our Mr. Missionary answered that 
once his eyes had hurt him a great deal, 
but as soon as he began to look through 
these pieces of glass, called spectacles, 
then he could see perfectly. It made 
Ramaswami think of his poor father's 
eyes at once. 

"O stranger— Sahib!" he begged, 
*'walk to my home and see my father. 
He sits in darkness unable to see. We 



Ramaswami's Fathers Spectacles 137 

belong to the goldsmith caste, but now 
he cannot work, and there is no rice for 
our pot, and no food for our stomachs." 

Of course our Mr. Missionary went. 
Ramaswami's father got up from the 
shadow of his mud hut, and touched his 
hand to his forehead. ' ' Salaam Sahib ! ' ? 
he said politely, which means in Eng- 
lish: " Good-morning, sir!" 

Well, our Mr. Missionary spent a 
long time telling the family about our 
Hospital at Ranipettai, where sick eyes 
could be treated— for money, if the 
people were rich ; for love, if the people 
were poor. He explained that there 
were schools there, too: a school where 
Ramaswami could learn wisdom ; a lace 
school where Ramaswami 's mother 
could learn to make lace to support the 
family, and last of all, a boarding-school 
where Ramaswami 's sister could be sent 
to school. 

You ought to have heard the family 
laugh at that! They thought it must 
be a joke! "What? Send a girl to 
school, Sahib?" they asked. " Surely 



138 Twentieth Story 

a girl can't learn how to read or 
write t" 

But our Mr. Missionary told how he 
knew lots and lots of girls who could 
read just as well as boys. Dear me ! 
they couldn't get over being surprised! 
Then our Mr. Missionary felt sorry for 
them because they were so poor, he said 
he was starting home that day in his 
bullock cart, it was only twenty miles, 
so he would take them with him. They 
decided that was the best thing to do, 
although the brown people in India are 
not fond of leaving their homes to live 
somewhere else, they think the idols on 
their shelf will not like to be moved! 

But when they finally got to Rani- 
pettai— will you say that name with 
me: "Ranipettai,"— it means, " Place 
of the Queen"— then they were glad 
they had come. For in the Hospital one 
of our Dr. Missionaries took care of 
Ramaswami's father. He did all sorts 
of things to his eyes, then he bandaged 
them up, and persuaded the father to 
get into the bed ! 



Ramaswami's Father's Spectacles 139 

To tell the truth, Ramaswami's father 
was afraid of that bed! You see, he 
had never even seen one before, because 
the brown people in India sleep on the 
floor. So the bed hardly seemed safe, 
it was so high up from the floor, and I 
suppose Ramaswami's father felt the 
way you and I would feel if we had to 
sleep on the roof ! 

However, he slept there a whole 
month, and every day a Bible woman 
came in and told him stories about 
Jesus, so that he became very much in- 
terested. At last the doctor took off 
the bandages, and gave him some pieces 
of glass to fasten on Ids nose : spectacles, 
of course— and then he really was the 
proudest, happiest man in all India, for 
he could see, and down in his heart was 
a new love for Jesus. Next Sunday I 
will tell you what happened to the rest 
of the family. 





TWENTY-FIRST STORY 






RAMASWAMI'S MOTHER EARNS 




A RUPEE 




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Here are the bobbins and here is the thread 
That earns for these women their own daily bread. 
They have all their collars and doilies for sale, 
And oh! but they're dainty cob-webby and frail! 



140 



' ' RAMAS WAMI 'S MOTHER 
EARNS A RUPEE" 

Last Sunday while we heard about 
Ramaswami's father in our Hospital, 
having his eyes made well, the rest of 
the family were having a wonderful 
time going to school. Yes, all of them, 
even the mother ! 

She went to a Lace School in Rani- 
pettai, where one of our missionaries 
teaches poor women to make lace, and 
although she was not very quick in 
learning to do it, because her fingers all 
seemed to be thumbs, yet she did finally 
finish a small piece of lace. Just a small 
queer little piece of lace, with several 
mistakes in it. But along came a nice 
American visitor, and when she saw the 
crooked little piece of lace, and looked 
at the dear brown fingers of Rama- 
swami's mother, and he§,rd the story 
about Ramaswami's father— w T hy then 

141 



142 Twenty-first Story 

she did the nicest thing, she bought the 
piece of lace! She even paid entirely 
too much for it, because she was sorry 
for the family. She laid one rupee in 
those dear brown hands: one rupee is 
worth thirty- three cents in our money! 
Thirty-three cents seemed a great deal 
of money to Ramaswami's mother, but 
instead of spending it for rice or a new 
saree for herself, this is what she did: 

Smiling all over her dear brown face 
she went to the Hospital and said to 
Ramaswami's father: "The one and 
only God has given much happiness to 
our family, the noble doctor has given 
you back your eyes and these pieces of 
glass to fasten on your nose ! Is it right 
that we should take all this for nothing ? 
No! So let us hide this rupee under the 
leaves of the betel-nuts for the doctor 
to find. It will be our present to Jesus. ' ' 

Don't you really think that was a 
lovely thing for her to do? So they 
put the rupee on a little tray, and cov- 
ered it over with the leaves of the betel- 
nut, with some betel-nuts on top and one 



A Rupee Earned 143 

little plantain, which is like a banana, 
you know! They handed the tray to 
our doctor with many a deep salaam, 
and he never knew until hours later that 
the rupee was hidden there. It made 
him have a nice warm feeling around 
his heart to know how much these new 
friends appreciated what he had done ! 

All this time Ramaswami was having 
a beautiful time in his school, and his 
sister, Anandabai, was having an even 
better time in her school, because she 
simply could not get over being sur- 
prised that girls could learn to read I 

This is the way she began to learn. 
She sat on the floor and began tracing 
the Hindu alphabet in some sand spread 
out before her. Such funny little hooks 
and curves as she did have to make! 
Then by and by when she knew how to 
make them, the teacher gave her a 
slate, and she scratched away on that 
with a great deal of noise and pleasure. 
She loved the school, and the teachers, 
and the other scholars. She was work- 
ing specially hard, because one of the 



144 Twenty-first Story 

little girls had told her that at the end of 
the school year, every girl who passed 
her examinations always received a 
doll. For the Primer class, the cunning 
dolls were only two inches long ; for the 
older class, three inches long; indeed, 
every year you stayed in that school you 
got a bigger doll— if you passed, of 
course ! 

Anandabai had never had a doll in 
all her life ; in fact, she had never seen 
one until she came to our school ; so she 
made up her mind she would stay at 
that school until she had earned every 
single doll, big, little, that a girl could 
earn! Then she would go back to her 
village with her head packed full of 
knowledge and her arms loaded down 
with dolls ; and she would swagger down 
the village street while all the neighbors 
would say: " There goes Anandabai! 
Have you seen her wonderful dolls? 
She knows more than any girl ever 
knew before— she even knows more than 
any man in the village!!" 

Now of course this was a very fool- 



A Rupee Earned 145 

ish, silly thing for her to think,— by and 
by she saw how conceited that would 
be, but not right away. No ! it took time 
for our missionaries to teach her, you 
see! 

Well, at the end of six weeks her 
father left the hospital with his eyes 
cured, and the first thing he thought of 
was getting back to his own village to 
begin making bracelets and necklaces 
again. They decided to leave Eama- 
swami in school, but Anandabai would 
be needed at home, to get water from 
the well, to grind the corn, and milk the 
goat! 

Well!! You can just imagine how 
Anandabai felt to think of going home 
without a single doll, or a bit of knowl- 
edge,— of course, no one could admire 
her yet! So she begged and begged to 
stay till the end of the year, anyhow ; 
till she earned one tiny doll, at least. 
Our missionaries wanted her to stay, 
too, only, of course, it was a pretty 
tight squeeze to keep her in their 
crowded school. But the girls were 



146 Twenty-first Story 

quite willing to keep on sleeping closer 
and eating a little less, if only Anan- 
dabai could stay. So finally her mother 
and father rode back to their village in 
a squeaky bullock cart, but Anandabai 
stayed on at school. Next Sunday I 
am going to tell you about the little 
girl-who-was-almost-turned-away! 






TWENTY-SECOND STORY 

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS 
ALMOST TURNED AWAY 




Room for one more 

On the schoolhouse floor? 

Well — yes — though 'twill squeeze 

These nice girls on their knees, 

Who can now understand 

How to write in the sand. 







147 



"THE LITTLE GIRL WHO 'AL- 
MOST' HAD TO BE TURNED 
AWAY" 

Last Sunday I told you how Rama- 
swami and Anandabai were left at 
school, when their mother and father 
returned to the old village, after the 
father's eyes were cured. Perhaps you 
remember that Anandabai specially 
wanted to stay, so she could earn a little 
doll at the end of the year, to show it 
off to the people in her village when 
she went home. Then every one would 
say: " Isn't it wonderful? Anandabai is 
a girl, but she can actually read! And 
she earned a doll at her school. No one 
is so bright as Anandabai in all our 
village." 

We decided last Sunday that this was 
a queer vain way to feel, and Anandabai 
thought so herself before long. 

148 






Girl Who Was Almost Turned Away 149 

You see, she began to watch our mis- 
sionaries, and some of the brown girls 
who never worshipped idols now, but 
were Christians. Anandabai watched 
every single thing they did; and she 
saw they were quite different from the 
heathen girls who worshipped idols: 
they spoke kindly to each other; they 
did not mind eating less food, so Anan- 
dabai could stay at school; they never 
grabbed for things at meal-time that 
did not belong to them; they never 
bragged about themselves, saying: "I 
am a good scholar, you never see me 
making mistakes in class!" Yet that 
was what Anandabai had said once. 
She felt a little ashamed of it, now. 

"When I get grown up, I'm going to 
be exactly like these Christian girls," 
Anandabai said to our Missionary. 

"Don't wait until you're grown up," 
our Missionary answered, "the only 
time to begin being a Christian girl is 
now, right away. So begin tomorrow, 
dear!" 

And under the big twinkling stars 



150 Twenty-second Story 

that night, Anandabai put her brown 
hand into the white hand of our Mis- 
sionary, as she w T hispered: "Tomorrow 
then! You shall see me begin to be a 
Jesus girl!" 

The very next day while all the girls 
were eating, chota hazri in the court- 
yard, sitting in two long lines with their 
plates on the ground before them, there 
was a big commotion at the gate: loud 
voices, and the sound of crying. 

Anandabai crept to the gate to find 
out what it was all about. There she 
saw a little girl, just her own age, sitting 
in back of a bullock cart, crying as if 
her heart would break. A man in a 
green turban was salaaming to our 
Missionary, and saying over and over: 
"But Mem Sahib, you said last year 
when you visited our village that my 
daughter would be welcome in your 
school. So her mother has packed two 
clean sarees and some rice, and we have 
traveled three days, only to have } 7 ou 
say ' There is no room in the school?' " 

Then our Missionary began to explain 



Girl Who Was Almost Turned Away 151 

all over again: "I am so sorry, but you 
see our school was crowded even at the 
beginning of the year, and since then 
I have kept crowding in one more girl, 
then another girl, and by and by another 
girl, then still one more, until four 
months ago I squeezed in the very last 
girl I possibly could! I am so sorry— 
so very sorry " 

Then Anandabai ran up very timidly. 
She remembered telling our Missionary 
the night before that on the next day 
she would begin being unselfish. Well, 
the new day.had come, and here was her 
chance. 

" Heaven-born !" she said to our Mis- 
sionary, "ask the little stranger girl to 
dry her tears. I was the last little girl 
you squeezed in, so now that I have 
learned my alphabet and know about 
Jesus, should I not return to my 
mother's village to draw T water from the 
well, and grind the corn, and milk the 
goat ; then the stranger girl can squeeze 
into my place !" 

Well,— our Missionary was never 



152 Twenty-second Story 

more astonished, and the new little girl 
crying in the bullock cart sniffled the 
way you do when you feel sure the worst 
is over! 

But the other girls in the school said : 
"No, no, Exalted Teacher, why should 
Anandabai leave! We will squeeze a 
little tighter — there are only two 
months more!" 

Even when our Missionary said it 
would be ever so uncomfortable, and no ! 
she really could not allow it, a perfect 
chorus of voices said: "Oh please! 
please let them both stay!" 

So they did. And there was more 
love in everybody's heart because Anan- 
dabai had been so good to the new little 
girl who almost had to be turned away. 

There really is some more to my 
story, for the next year a little school 
was started in Anandabai 's village, so 
she lived at home, and everybody in the 
village really was proud of her, because 
she knew more than any of the other 
girls, and had earned one doll. But 
Anandabai knew better than to be vain 



Girl Who Was Almost Turned Away 153 

about such a little thing as knowing the 
alphabet. 

"No," she said to herself, "if I live 
to be a hundred I can never know all 
our Missionary knows, or do as much 
good as she does. But I just think I'll 
try!" And of course that's all any« 
body can do ! 



TWENTY-THIRD STORY 

"GOD'S LITTLE GARDEN" 




These five small pansy faces, a message sweet can 

tell, 
I hope you'll listen to them, and heed their message 

well : 



"My heart is God's little garden, 

And the flowers blooming there each day, 
Are the things he shall see me doing, 
And the words he shall hear me say !" 

— Selected. 

Something for you to do: Leave one little pansy 
white, that's for you and me; then paint one yellow 
for Little Miss Daffodil, a Chinese girl; one black, 
for Rustling Grass; one brown for Ramaswami and 
one red for the One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns. 



154 



u 



GOD'S LITTLE GARDEN 5 



Every once in a while I see a little 
boy or girl who reminds me of a certain 
flower. You know what I mean, for you 
have often heard people say: "Mary's 
eyes are as blue as forgetmenots," 
"Ruth's cheeks are like pink roses/' 
"Tom's lips are as red as poppies." 
But the other day it occurred to me in 
looking at some pansies that they are 
almost exactly like the faces of God's 
E amity ! 

It isn't at all hard to pretend that the 
white pansies are the white members of 
God's Family, that means you and all 
the other white children in God's 
world. Then the black pansies certainly 
must be — who do you suppose? Of 
course! The black negro people in 
Africa! Surely you haven't forgotten 
about their little houses-that-are-built- 
in-half-an-hour, or about the banana 

155 



156 Twenty-third Story 

tree-that-was-all-dressed-up ! The yel- 
low pansies are the Japanese children 
in God's Family. I think you remember 
their dear little, queer little-houses-that- 
were-made-of-paper, and the cradle- 
that-walked-on-two-feet, and the pa- 
goda-that-had-five-roofs where they 
worshipped the ugly idol. The brown 
pansies are certainly the dear little 
brown children of India. I have just 
been telling you Elephant tales about 
their elephant-god and about Eama- 
swami and Anandabai. As for these 
reddish-colored pansies, they are the 
American Indians who live here in our 
country, although I haven't had time 
to tell you about them yet. 

Well, you know the minute you see a 
pansy that it is a pansy, whatever color 
it is, don't you? In the same way, we 
can always know that everybody we see 
is a member of God's Family, whatever 
color they may be! 

Now let me tell you the history of 
the pansies. They weren't always 
flowers. No, once they were only queer- 



God's Little Garden 157 

looking seeds like these. [The teacher 
is requested to have some pansy seeds, 
also five pansies of the above mentioned 
colors to illustrate this story.] How 
very small the seeds do look ! Here are 
five of them, all exactly alike as far as 
you or I can see. Once somebody 
planted five seeds just like these down 
in the earth of a pretty garden, God 
sent His rain and His sun to help them 
grow, and somehow he taught them how 
to split open when the rain had wet 
them and the sun had warmed them. 
Then tiny little green shoots began 
growing higher and higher, until finally 
they pushed right out into the sunlight. 
They still kept on growing, and you 
could plainly see little leaves, then little 
buds— then what? Yes, five little pan- 
sies! But although the seeds all looked 
alike, and the plants all looked alike, 
and the buds all looked alike, one 
flower had white petals, another black 
petals, another brown petals, another 
yellow petals, and another reddish 
petals! The minute they opened their 



158 Twenty-third Story 

petals the same sweet smell seemed to 
breathe the words : i ' God is good ! ' ' And 
if you had your eyes shut, you couldn't 
tell one flower from the other : the color 
was the only difference. 

God has given each child in His great 
big Family a little garden of his very 
own, in which we are each to plant the 
seeds of love and kindness. I know a 
little verse that tells the whole story: 



a 



My heart is God's little garden, 
And the flowers growing there each 
day, 
Are the things he shall see me doing, 
And the words he shall hear me say 



99 



But just as all the pansy plants 
needed God's sun to help them grow 
right, so every little child needs God's 
Son, Jesus, to help him grow right. All 
over God's world our missionaries are 
busy telling the children of God's 
Family that their hearts are God's little 
gardens, and showing them how to grow 
right. But the sad part about it is that 



God's Little Garden 159 

there aren't nearly enough missionaries 
to go around among all of God's Family 
who never heard of Him, so whenever 
you look at little pansy faces smiling 
up at you from a garden, I want you 
to remember the little yellow and black 
and brown and red faces of God's 
Family. And I want you to pray that 
just as all the dear pansy faces seem 
to say "God is good!" so God wants 
to see all the little red and yellow and 
black and brown faces smiling as they 
sing, "God is good!" 

I think it is very nice to know that 
it doesn't matter what color their faces 
are. Just the way a black pansy is ex- 
actly as sweet as a yellow pansy or a 
white pansy. You won't forget all this 
the next time you see pansies, will you ? 
For Children's Day can't be a real 
Children's Day until every single child 
all over God's world joins with us in 
singing: "God is good!" 



TWENTY-FOURTH STORY 

THE LONELY HOUSE THAT 
HAD NO NEIGHBORS 




"How lonely it is!" the Lonely House thinks 
While its one lonely window solemnly blinks, 
"I've nothing to look at but hills, all the day, 
For all of my neighbors live so far away." 

Something for you to do : I think it would com- 
fort the Lonely Little House if you painted its wood- 
work brown, and the grass green. The mother in 
the doorway wants a new blue dress, too ! 



1 60 






"THE LONELY HOUSE-THAT- 
HAD-NO-NEIGHBORS ' ' 

I have told you stories about a dear 
little, queer little house-that-was-made- 
of-paper, and other stories about the 
little house-that-was-built-in-half-an- 
hour, so today I have another story 
about a very Lonely House-That-Had- 
No-Neighbors ! 

It seems to me it must be ever so 
friendly for one little house to look 
across the street and see smoke curling 
out of the chimney of the house over 
there. ' ' Well, well ! ' ' says the first little 
house to himself, "they must be getting 
supper over at the Smiths !" Or per- 
haps when the little house looks right 
next door and sees fresh white curtains 
at the windows, can't you just imagine 
how green with jealousy he must feel 
until the people who live inside him put 

161 



1 62 Twenty-fourth Story 

curtains at his windows, too ? Yes, hav- 
ing neighbors is very cheerful ! 

The little house I am going to tell 
you about today has no neighbors at all, 
and no nice curtains at the windows, 
either. Not even any glass in the win- 
dows! 

I hear you asking: "What kind of a 
family live inside?" 

Well, they're white people, just ex- 
actly like you and me, in lots of ways. 
I mean they speak the same language, 
and they have the same color skin, and 
they live in America with us, but each 
lonely-house-that-has-no-neighbors is 
tucked in among the trees in a valley 
with oh! so many hills all around it! 
Just hills— and hills— and hills— every- 
where! And it's awfully hard to get 
from one lonely - house - that - has - no - 
neighbors over to another lonely-house- 
that-has-no-neighbors. That is because 
the roads in these hills are very poor— 
all stony and steep, sometimes a river 
runs right across a road in one place, 
and a tree grows right in the middle 



House That Had No Neighbors 163 

of the road in another place. And 
sometimes there isn't anj^ road at all, 
oh ? dear ! 

So you can plainly see it isn't much 
fun to live in a lonely-house-that-has- 
no-neighbors, although I really haven't 
told you the worst about it yet. It 
seems to me it's bad enough not to have 
any other family to play with or look 
at, but just suppose there wasn't really 
room enough in the lonely-house-that- 
has-no-neighbors for the family that 
lived in it ! Suppose there was only one 
room, with a bed in one corner, a smoky 
fireplace where mother did all the cook- 
ing, two very uncomfortable chairs that 
father made out of boxes, and a queer 
old tipsy table and a spinning-wheel ! 
From the ceiling hang strings of onions, 
and red and green peppers, and a ham ! 

"That is a queer way for American 
children to live," you say, "only one 
bed when there are so many in the 
family." Of course all these families 
who live in these lonely-houses-that- 
have-no-neighbors are very poor, and 



164 Twenty-fourth Story 

they can't afford to have beds enough 
to go round, or chairs enough, either. 
I am sorry to say the poor mothers and 
fathers are so tired all the time that 
they just settle down, and keep right 
on being poor and miserable, because 
there doesn't seem to be anything else 
to do. 

The fields are all so steep and stony 
that it is very hard to raise potatoes 
and corn. Once I heard that a farm on 
the side of a hill was so very steep that 
one day when the poor farmer was 
ploughing he actually fell right out of 
his own farm down the hill ! 

"It all sounds perfectly horrid," you 
say, "but maybe they spend lots of time 
reading in the lonely-houses-that-have- 
no-neighbors. ' ' 

No, for that's another unpleasant 
thing about being one of these lonely 
Americans shut in by the lonely hills: 
for neither the mother, nor the father, 
nor any of the children can read at all ! 
That means they never saw a Bible, 



House That Had No Neighbors 165 

most of them, so they really know next 
to nothing about God. 

"Well," you say, "I think they need 
a missionary or two!" 

And that is just what lots of the 
grown-up people in our church thought, 
too. So they sent some missionaries 
down among those beautiful mountains 
of Kentucky, and they gave them a 
horse so they could climb up and down 
the hills and valleys to find all the 
lonely-houses-that-have-no-neighbors. 

I think it was a great surprise even 
to our missionaries to find so many, 
many lonely families tucked away in 
the woods and the valleys: unhappy 
families who quarreled, and had no 
funny little family jokes the way our 
families do. Families who never read 
books or newspapers, and so never knew 
what was going on all over God's world 
among His Family. 

"We must have a school for them," 
said one missionary. 

"And a church!" said another mis- 
sionary. 



1 66 Twenty-fourth Story 

"And a nurse I" sighed a third mis- 
sionary, who found ever and ever so 
many sick people who had no medicine 
to take because there was no doctor 
anywhere. "A hospital, too!" said the 
first missionary. 

All these things take money, of 
course, lots of money, but the people 
who go to our church gave it, so now 
in those mountains there are several 
perfectly good schools, full to the brim 
with nice little mountain girls and boys ; 
there are nice little churches packed 
with the lonely families from houses- 
that-have-no-neighbors. There is a hos- 
pital, too, and a doctor and nurses. So 
it isn't quite as lonely in those moun- 
tains as it used to be, because our church 
is helping. 

But there is lots to do yet, and next 
Sunday I am going to tell you about a 
little mountain girl - who - never - said - 
please ! 



TWENTY-FIFTH STORY 

"THE LITTLE GIRL WHO NEVER 
SAID PLEASE" 




All over God's world the same thing is true 
Which now I am going to whisper to you: 

* 'Hearts like doors open with ease, 
To very, very little keys, 
Never forget that two of these 
Are : 'I thank you' and 'If you please.' " 

— Selected. 



Something fob you to do : Hearts are always red, 
as of course you know, and doors are usually brown ; 
so now you know how to paint this picture! 

167 



"THE LITTLE GIRL-WHO- 
NE VER-S AID-PLEASE ' ' 

In the first place it wasn't at all her 
fault that she never said "Please!" be- 
cause nobody ever taught her! She 
never even heard anybody say it — 
neither her mother, nor her father, nor 
her brothers, nor her sisters, nor her 
aunts, nor her uncles! For the people 
who live in the lonely-houses-that-have- 
no-neighbors have gotten into very bad 
habits,— they grab what they want, and 
are really unpleasant and impolite al- 
most all of the time. 

When our missionaries came to the 
mountains of Kentucky they listened 
and listened and listened, but they 
never heard anybody say "Please" or 
"Thank You" So when I tell you 
about the Little Girl- Who-Never- Said- 
Please, you must know that she wasn't 

168 






Little Girl Who Never Said Please 169 

the only one, for everybody else was 
just like her in that way. 

To begin with, of course she lived in 
a lonely little house-that-had-no-neigh- 
bors. And there weren't enough beds, 
or dishes, or even tin pans ! Speaking 
of pans, her mother had to use the same 
pan to get the water in from the brook, 
to mix the bread in, to feed the cow 
from, and to gather the chips for the 
fire ! Not because she wanted to, but be- 
cause there was no other pan in the 
house. 

The little girl's name was Sookie. 
One day when she was down by the 
brook getting some water in the one- 
and-only-tin-pan, who should come call- 
ing but one of our missionaries, on 
horseback. 

This is what Sookie 's mother said to 
our missionary: "How do, stranger! 
'Light, and hitch your beastie!" 

So our missionary got off and hitched 
her "beastie" to a tree, and came over 
to shake hands with Sookie 's mother. 
Sookie was far too shy to come any 



170 Twenty-fifth Story 

nearer than the corner of the house, 
where she could "peek" at this lovely 
stranger with the soft sweet voice. 

Our missionary looked around the 
dirty, ugly, lonely little house and de- 
cided she couldn't possibly say any- 
thing nice about that, so she looked at 
God's beautiful world instead, and said : 
" What beautiful hills you can see from 
your front door! I just love them!" 

But Sookie's poor tired mother said: 
"Yes, I guess maybe they are pretty to 
some, but I get so tired it seems like 
I can't look up as high as the hills. It 
seems like I just can't look over 'em." 

Do you know, our missionary would 
have given anything to get out her 
pocket handkerchief and just cry and 
cry? She felt so sorry for Sookie's 
poor tired mother. But missionaries 
know better than to cry in public, so she 
acted just as cheerful as she could while 
she told about the lovely new school for 
boys and girls that was to begin "day 
after tomorrow." She said it wasn't 
a very big school, so each family could 



Little Girl Who Never Said Please 171 

only send two of their children, and did 
she have two she wanted to send ! You 
ought to have seen Sookie come rushing 
up then. 

"Now mammy," she said, "you ain't 
aimin' to send only the boys, be you? 
You'll send me, won't you?" 

There were five children in the 
family, and it was hard to know which 
two to choose, but finally she decided 
Sookie could go. 

Happy? Why Sookie was fairly 
bubbling with happiness! She could 
hardly wait for school to "take up," 
as they say in the mountains. She 
counted this way: "Tomorrow I eat, 
then I sleep, then I comb my hair, and 
then I roll away to school!" 

So when school did begin no one was 
there earlier than Sookie and her 
brother. They did one queer thing the 
minute school began, they took off their 
shoes and stockings! You'll never 
guess why ! No : not because it was too 
warm! No: not because they were un- 
comfortable, although I think they 



172 Twenty-fifth Story 

were. But that wasn't the real reason. 
For they took them off to save them. 
Shoes and stockings are dreadfully ex- 
pensive things, so expensive that Sookie 
was wearing her mother's, and she 
wanted to make them last forever and 
ever, so that is why she took them off 
to save them. 

Sookie listened hard to everything 
that happened that day, and she heard 
the teacher say "please" very often. 
Then she heard some of the girls who 
lived at the school all the time say 
" please. " These girls came from lonely- 
houses-that-had-no-neighbors far off in 
the hills, and they learned their good 
manners from our missionaries. Sookie 
heard them saying: "Oh please help me 
do this," or "Oh thank you so much for 
that"; and somehow it sounded very 
nice and friendly to Sookie. She de- 
cided to say it herself, all the time. 

She even made her brothers and 
sister say "Please," and next Sunday 
I want to tell you how even the Sun- 
bonnet Baby learned to say "Please." 



TWEXTY-SIXTH STORY 

THE SUNBONNET BABY 





The Sunbonnet Babies — God loves them, I know, 
Loves babies and bonnets of gay calico ! 
How nice it will be when they go to our school 
To sing and to read and to learn things by rule. 



173 



"THE SUNBONKET BABY" 

Somehow we get so used to seeing 
people wear hats, that we think every- 
body in God's Family wears them. Yet 
the yellow people in faraway Japan, 
and the black people in Africa never 
wear hats at all, while the brown 
mothers and daughters in India just 
pull part of their dresses up over their 
heads like a shawl. But right here in 
our own country, in the Kentucky 
mountains where the lonely-houses-that- 
' have-no-neighbors are full of little 
girls-who-never-say-please, the women 
and girls wear sunbonnets. You can see 
a picture of them on your Take-home 
cards, and I have a story for you today 
about the Sunbonnet Baby who seems 
to be nearly falling off the back of the 
horse. 

One day Sookie, her sister, came 
home from school, and found the Sun- 

174 



The Sunbonnet Baby 175 

bonnet Baby crying loudly outside the 
closed door of their lonely-house-that- 
had-no-neighbors. Although really it 
was worse than crying, it was howling, 
and nobody liked a Howler, you know ! 

So Sookie rushed over: "What yer 
mean makin' such a racket?" she asked, 
shaking the Sunbonnet Baby hard. 

"Want ter git in the house," howled 

the Babv. 

*/ 

"Well, say ' please' then," Sookie 
commanded. But the Howler had never 
heard of such nonsense before. 

"Go ahead— say ' please V " 

"Why- for I say ' please?' " howled 
the Sunbonnet Baby. 

"Well," said Sookie, "I learnt a nice 
little poem at school today that tells 
why. You-all just listen: 

"Hearts, like doors, open with ease 

To very, very little keys : 

Never forget that two of these 

Are 'I thank you/ and 'If you please.' " 

The Sunbonnet Baby had never heard 
a poem before, so she stopped howling 



176 Twenty-sixth Story 

and actually smiled. "Please!" she 
lisped, so Sookie opened the door to 
the Lonely-house-that-had-no-neighbors 
and they went in. 

u JSTow that yer indoors, what do yer 
want?" asked Sookie. 

The Sunbonnet baby smiled: "I 
wants a kiss!" she said. 

"A kiss?" said Sookie, " whatever 
made yer think of kisses." 

" Missionary lady gives me kisses— 
I likes 'em. I wants one now. Where 
is the missionary lady?" 

"Why she's not here, Baby, she's at 
her home!" Then Sookie sat down on 
the floor and began to think about kisses 
herself. Had anybody ever kissed her ? 
Well, of course, years and years before 
somebody must have! But somehow 
she couldn't remember about it, at all. 
Her mother was always too busy work- 
ing in the garden, or making butter, or 
weaving, or making candles, or cooking, 
to waste any times on kisses. And her 
father was rather too cross to even 
think of kissing anybody, and her 



The Sunbonnet Baby 177 

brothers never heard of such a thing, 
maybe. Suddenly she knew how badly 
she wanted a kiss, herself. 

"I tell yer what, Baby," Sookie said, 
"I'll kiss yer myself." 

"No! No!" said the Sunbonnet Baby, 
howling all over again, "I wants my 
missionary lady." 

Just then their mother rode up to the 
door on their bis; bony horse, with 
several baskets of berries. 

"Sookie," she called, "I'm goin' to 
the crossroads, to try an' sell these ber- 
ries!" 

Sookie ran over to her. "I reckon 
there's room on the back of the beastie 
for me and Baby, we want to go see the 
missionary lady something fierce." 

So up they scrambled on the black 
horse, and aw 7 ay they rode to the cross- 
roads. A wagon happened to pass just 
then, and Sookie 's mother sold all her 
berries. Then they rode to our mission- 
ary's house. It was in her front yard 
that the Sunbonnet Baby almost fell 



178 Twenty-sixth Story 

off the horse, she was in such a hurry 
for her kiss. 

Sookie called after her: "Now, Baby, 
what yer goin' to say to the lady first 
off?" 

The Sunbonnet Baby looked up at our 
missionary and said: "If you please!" 

How our missionary did kiss her. 
She kissed Sookie, too. So then Sookie 
said to her mother: "Mammy I'm aim- 
in 9 to kiss you every day now." 

Something nice and warm woke up 
in the mother's heart. "I reckon that 
will be real nice, Sookie," she said, "I 
allow I clean forgot how nice kissin' 
was, I been so busy and tired." 

The Sunbonnet Baby looked up at her 
mother: "If you please, mammy!" she 
said. 

So then her mother kissed her, and 
I guess everybody knows there 's nobody 
in the whole world a baby would rather 
kiss than— mother! And it was just 
one more dear friendly thing that our 
missionary had taught Sookie 's family. 



TWENTY-SEVENTH STORY 

THE GET WELL ROOM 




ORE 



ToJ**- 1 



This boy is sick, the days seem long 
Because inside him things are wrong. 
But in our Get Well Room he lies 
And likes our Doctor, kind and wise. 



179 



"THE GET WELL ROOM" 

Sookie and the Sunbonnet Baby had 
a brother named Udell, who had been 
very sick in the lonely-house-that-has- 
no-neighbors ; he was sick for a long 
time before our missionary nurse heard 
about it. As soon as she heard, she got 
on her horse and rode over the steep 
stony hills to leave him some medicine 
in a bottle* 

You all know how medicine bottles 
look, don't you % How they have a piece 
of paper pasted on the outside of the 
bottle where the directions are written. 
"Directions" are words that tell you 
how to take the medicine— how many 
pills to take, and whether to put them 
in water or take them dry on your 
tongue. Well, our missionary nurse 
left the bottle and rode away hoping the 
pills would help Udell, for she knew 
how horrid it must be to be sick in one 
of these lonely houses, where the cold 
wind whistled through the cracks in the 

iSo 



The Get Well Room 181 

walls and the smoke from the open 
fireplace made poor sick eyes water and 
smart. 

After she left the mother who lived 
in the lonely house picked up the bottle 
and remembered something our mission- 
ary had entirely forgotten,— she re- 
membered that she could not read a 
single ivord of the directions on the 
bottle ! 

"Why don't yer give me my medi- 
cine, mammy?" Udell asked. 

"I don't dast give it to you/ 5 his 
mother said, "for I can't tell what this 
here writin' on the bottle says." 

"Leave me look at it!" Udell said, 
and by the way, you can see that Sookie 
had not taught him to say "please" yet ! 
So Udell looked, but he could not read 
either. 

"I reckon we will just wait till Sookie 
comes home from school this afternoon, 
for Sookie can read most anything," his 
mother said, and she began washing the 
few old cracked dishes and her one tin 
pan. 



1 82 Twenty-seventh Story 

But Udell was so tired of being sick, 
it seemed as if he couldn't wait all the 
hours until school was over, so he did 
what you and I know right away was a 
dreadful thing to do : he ate all the pills 
at once! They tasted dreadfully, and 
of course they made him begin to feel 
queerer and queerer inside. He even 
cried a little, which boys don't generally 
do unless things are pretty bad. His 
mother was very much scared, for when 
Sookie came home from school she read 
off the label on the bottle these words : 
"Take one pill in a teaspoon of water 
every four hours." And of course you 
remember Udell had eaten all the pills 
at once, without any w T ater. 

"I reckon you'd best take Udell on 
the beastie right down to the Hospital, 
mammy," said Sookie. "I reckon he's 
gettin' powerful sick." 

So the father saddled their bony old 
horse, and rode all the way to the Hos- 
pital with Udell in his arms. 

Now at our Hospital in the Kentucky 
mountains we have one room called 



The Get Well Room 183 

"The Get Well Room," especially kept 
for poor sick children like Udell, who 
come from draughty, smoky, lonely log 
cabins. Udell had never slept in a clean 
white bed before, although for a long 
while he was so sick he hardly knew 
where he was. But by and by he got 
better, then he liked to have our nurse 
call him "Dear," and every time Sookie 
stopped in from school to see him she 
would say: "I hope you remember to 
say 'Thank you' and ' Please' to the 
doctor and the nurse!" 

"Of course, I do," Udell said 
proudly, "and I clean my teeth now 
every day, which is more than you do !" 

"How do you do it?" Sookie asked 
curiously. 

"This is my very own t?ooth brush," 
Udell explained, "and I just swish it 
around up and down, up and down over 
my teeth with plenty of water ! If you 
say * please' to the nurse, maybe she'll 
give you a brush of your own. She says 
I must never let anybody else use mine, 
never/' 



184 Twenty-seventh Story 

Our missionaries have brought some 
very nice things to Sookie's family. 
Just plain everyday things like 
"Please," and "Thank you/' and 
' ' Kisses, ' ' and ' ' Toothbrushes, ' ' —things 
that you and I have always known about 
because there is happiness in our homes. 
But I almost think the Get Well Room 
was one of the kindest, loveliest things 
our missionaries thought of. For the 
Get- Sick-Times would have been dread- 
ful in the cold lonely-house-that-had- 
no-neighbors, and the Getting-Better- 
Times would have seemed so long and 
dreary there. Did you know that the 
children in our churches and Sunday 
schools and Mission Bands gave their 
offerings specially for this Get Well 
Room? I love to think that you and 
I can have a share in it, and that every 
day our dear missionaries are teaching 
Sookie, and Udell, and the Sunbonnet 
Baby, and all the other mountain chil- 
dren, the nicest ways to say "Thank 
you!" 



TWENTY-EIGHTH STORY 

THE PEOPLE WHO COME HERE 
IN BOATS 




urn 



From far across the sea they come 
And live in some unpleasant slum. 
They work all day to make for you 
The things without which you can't do: 
Both clothes and coal and food and shoes, 
And lots of other things you use. 

Something for you to do : You will need lots of 
colors for this family, for all the shawls and mufflers 
and skirts are very bright, and so are the bundles. 
They don't like patches, poor dears, but they look nice 
in pictures, I think. 



»8S 



"THE PEOPLE WHO COME 
HERE IN BOATS " 

Jtjst about this time of the year, 
when summer comes around, ever and 
ever so many fathers I know have a way 
of saying to their families: "Come on, 
children! Let's pack up now, and go 
for our vacation/' Probably you know 
some boys and girls who have gone 
away like that, do you? 

Sometimes they go in the train, some- 
times in automobiles, sometimes in great 
big boats. They travel for a whole 
day, and have a beautiful time after- 
wards playing in the sand, or on the 
farm, or in the mountains. But when 
the summer is over, they all come back 
home again; the boys and girls go to 
school, the fathers go to business every 
morning, and the mothers— well, you 
know what mothers do! Just about 
everything, don't they % 

*86 



People Who Come Here in Boats 187 

I have a story for you today about a 
very different kind of travel. Far away 
over the sea somewhere, a father says 
to a mother, in one of the languages 
you and I do not know,— but God knows 
it: "Little mother," says this father, 
"let us pack up and go to America!" 

Then such a babble of little voices! 
"Shall I need my old patched coat in 
America, mother?" one child asks, "and 
can I take all the kittens ?" another one 
says. 

"Well, that's nice," I hear you say, 
"but are they coming all this way for 
a vacation, just to see the sights?" 

Oh dear no, they are coming over 
here to live, but they will be so poor 
and have to work so hard that they will 
probably never get time to see any of 
the sights, at all. 

' ' Then why do they come if they have 
to work so hard?" you ask me. 

Well, it's like this: over where they 
live the father can't begin to make as 
much money as he can here, he can't 
buy enough food over there to feed all 



188 Twenty-eighth Story 

the hungry stomachs, or enough clothes 
to cover all the shivering backs, or 
enough shoes for all the busy feet. So 
he comes to America because he can get 
more money here. 

There are white fathers from Italy 
and Russia, brown fathers from India 
and Arabia, yellow fathers from Japan 
and China : just hundreds and hundreds 
of fathers from all over God's world 
who decide to come here and live. 

They load themselves down with huge 
bundles, then they crowd themselves 
into big boats, and the big boats come 
sailing, and sailing, and sailing over 
the blue ocean to America. 

Of course you never knew about it 
before, but most of the things that we 
have to eat and to wear are made by 
these fathers who come to America in 
big boats. 

The coal that we burn in our furnaces 
is mostly dug out of the earth by the 
fathers of little Slavic children; the 
yards and yards of woolen and cotton 
cloth that we see piled up in our stores 



People Who Come Here in Boats 189 

was woven by the fathers and mothers 
of little Bohemian and Polish children. 
For, oh yes! the mothers work, too! 
That is because they are so poor. Your 
suits and coats that you bought in the 
store were made by the mothers and 
fathers of little Jewish children. Your 
shoes, your gloves, your father's collars 
and cuffs and shirts, your furniture, 
your canned vegetables— really almost 
everything in your house was made by 
these fathers from over the sea. They 
work out in the streets, too, digging 
away to make streets and sidewalks for 
us. 

It really seems as if most things we 
use would just stop, if these fathers 
who came here in boats, should suddenly 
decide to go home again. But luckily 
they want to stay, although it certainly 
can't be much fun for them to work, 
work, work in the dirty coal mines, or 
the busy noisy factories, or even out in 
the muddy streets where they may get 
run over unless they are careful. 

When you go home just look around 



190 Twenty-eighth Story 

your home, and see everything with 
neiv eyes. And perhaps when you pray 
to Jesus tonight you will want to say: 
" Please bless all the people who came 
to America in boats, and who have made 
our shoes and our furniture and our 
clothing for us.' ? 



TWEXTY-XIXTH STORY 

PIG-TAILS AND OTHER TALES 




This little girl came here from Japan, 
She's learning our ways as fast as she can. 
I think every one of us ought to think twice 
Before we hurt her with words that aren't nice, 
For if we should live in Japan for a while, 
We'd find that we, too, were all out of style! 

Something for you to do: Paint her nice kimono 
and sash in your two favorite colors. 

191 



"PIG-TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES" 

I am sure you have not forgotten 
what I told you last Sunday about the 
fathers from all over God's world who 
came to America in boats, bringing their 
families with them, have you ? Or how 
almost everything we have to eat and 
wear and use in our homes was made 
by them % 

Of course you and I understand how 
it is that these fathers and their chil- 
dren speak different languages from 
ours, and dress differently, and act dif- 
ferently. For we know that is the way 
God made His Family, the way He 
likes them to be, each part of the family 
different from every other part. Just 
the way your sister and brother don't 
look exactly like you. Since it doesn't 
matter to God what language the people 

192 



Pig-Tails and Other Tales 193 

in His Family speak, or how they dress, 
it doesn't matter to you and me, either. 

But there are girls and boys in 
America who aren't polite enough to 
overlook the way these children-from- 
over-the-sea dress and talk. I think it 
must be because they don't know the 
secret about God's Family that you 
and I know! For they nickname the 
little Jewish children "Sheeny," and 
the Italian children "Dagoes," and 
the little Slavic children "Wops." 
They think they are being very smart 
and funny, and that white children like 
ourselves are the only nice children 
there are. You can tell from all my 
stories about Butterfly, Ko - i - chan, 
Rustling Grass, Lazy Legs, Ramaswami 
and Anandabai that other children in 
God's Family are every hit as nice as 
we are. Here is a story to prove it ! 

Once there was a little girl from 
Japan whose father worked in New 
York City. She went every day to one 
of our public schools. 

I'm sure you haven't forgotten how 



194 Twenty-ninth Story 

beautifully polite everyone is in Japan, 
so this little Japanese girl kept on being 
beautifully polite here in America. 
Whenever she came into the class-room 
she bowed way over to the teacher, and 
when she stood up to recite she bowed 
again very politely. Even when the 
little girls in her grade spoke to her she 
bowed to them. And would you believe 
it % But some of the rude boys and girls 
in her grade made fun of her! They 
made fun of her dear Japanese eyes 
which slanted up at the corners. They 
thought it was very funny to nickname 
her " Slant-Eyes. " 

She was very quiet and polite, so it 
was no fun to keep teasing her about 
her eyes, and they made fun of her dear 
little blue kimono with the blue sash 
and the big sleeves. ' ' Big Sleeves ! Big 
Sleeves ! Big Sleeves has her wrapper 
on!" they shouted in a sing-song way 
after her, on the street. I think that 
really hurt her feelings, for one day she 
came in an American dress like yours 
and mine, so then the foolish girls and 



Pig-tails and Other Tales 195 

boys began making fun of her hair. It 
was bobbed evenly all around her head, 
except for two long locks that hung on 
either side of her face. 

' ' Pig-tails ! Pig-tails ! Funny little 
Pig-tails ' ' they chanted at her, at re- 
cess ; until this dear little Japanese girl 
from over the sea began to think it was 
perfectly dreadful to go to school in 
America. 

But that very night one of the worst 
little American girls, who had started 
all the teasing, had a dream. Although 
she never knew it was a dream until 
she woke up, of course. 

Somehow or other Mary Smith knew 
she was way over the sea in Japan. It 
began by her hearing Japanese voices 
saying : " What a perfectly hideous little 
girl!" Now Mary had often heard 
people tell her mother how pretty Mary 
was, so she was a little mad! The 
Japanese voices went on: " Isn't her 
hair the most ridiculous color ? Yellow, 
instead of black ! Poor ugly girl, I even 
believe her eves are blue instead of 



196 Twenty-ninth Story 

brown. Poor faded eyes. Tliey don't 
even slant up at the corners as pretty 
eves should." 

Then someone else said: "Did you 
ever see anything so absurd as her 
funny dress? Just look at that big 
white collar ? What can it be for ? To 
keep her warm? And see her tight- 
sleeves, she can't carry even a fan in 
them! And dear me! Just look at 
those silly shoes, tightly buttoned all 
the way up. She must have to wear 
them right in the house. I suppose she 
has no manners at all." 

Then next Mary was in a Japanese 
school, standing up to recite. And oh, 
the mistakes she made! They actually 
had to nudge her, and remind her it 
was very impolite to forget to bow to 
the teacher. It was also wrong to call 
the teacher "Miss So and So," she 
should say "Honorable Miss So and 
So." If ever a little girl was unhappy 
Mary Smith was that girl, yet the 
Japanese girls were very polite and 
never laughed out loud. 



Pig-tails and Other Tales 197 

Then she woke up, and knew it was 
only a dream! But when she got to 
school she told her dream to all the rude 
children who had been laughing at the 
little Japanese from over the sea. 

" Don't let's ever laugh or make fun 
of her any more/' said Mary Smith, 
"Why, I made mistakes every minute 
in Japan, girls, every minute! I 
couldn't eat my rice with their chop- 
sticks, I couldn't write in school with 
their brushes instead of pencils, I 
couldn't even bow right. How do I 
know that her way of doing these things 
isn't every bit as good as our way? So 
don't let's make fun of her again. For 
I tell you girls, it hurts!" 

And they never did ! 

I know you never will, either. 



THIRTIETH STORY 

THE LADY WITH THE WEL- 
COME FEET 




Up lots of stairs and down back alleys 
Our fearless missionary sallies. 
In wintry cold, in summer heat, 
This Lady-with-the-Welcome-Feet 
Becomes a friend to all who lead 
A very lonely life indeed. 
I like to think that through the hours 
The work she does is really ours, 
Because our church directs her feet 
To Japanese on every street. 



198 



"THE LADY WITH THE WEL- 
COME FEET" 

I know you have not forgotten my 
stories about the people who come here 
in boats from places all over God's 
world, and who live in our cities, and 
work all day long making the things we 
use every day. You remember the 
story about the Japanese girl in the 
New York school, too, don't you u ? And 
the way some of the children made fun 
of her quaint Japanese ways, until Mary 
Smith had an uncomfortable dream 
that she was in Japan, making the 
queerest kinds of mistakes all day long ! 

Well, just as Mary Smith felt un- 
comfortable and lonesome in Japan, 
so the Japanese people feel ever so 
uncomfortable and lonesome here in 
America. You see, they can't under- 
stand the words we American people 

199 



200 Thirtieth Story 

say, and they can't read our books, so 
I guess you can see what they need 
most of all is a friend to help them ! 

But where can they find this very 
special kind of a friend? Not the 
storekeeper where they buy the things 
they eat — for he, poor man, only wants 
their money, he hardly takes time to 
notice that they seem unhappy and lone- 
some. And the Landlord isn't their 
friend, oh no ! he just wants their money, 
too, and it doesn't matter to him that 
they are uncomfortable in the dark, ugly 
room in his big dark ugly house. And 
the Policemen aren't friends of theirs, 
either* ITo, somehow the Policemen 
just finds fault with the queer Japan- 
nese way they have of doing things, and 
because he can't understand the very 
polite words they say in Japanese, he 
thinks they must be saying something 
dreadful! 

But I can hear you say: "But how 
about their neighbors, can't they be 
friends ? ' ' 

Well, they could, of course, only they 






Lady With the Welcome Feet 201 

don't very often take time to even think 
about other people who are uncomfort- 
able and lonesome, because that is the 
way they feel themselves! For they 
are ever so poor, they are crowded into 
dark, ugly rooms, they have to work 
very hard all day, and everything gets 
so cluttered up and dirty that nobody 
can feel very happy! One neighbor 
doesn't think very much about another 
neighbor, I'm afraid. 

So I think it is a very beautiful thing 
that God has put it into the hearts of 
some of the people in our church to 
have a missionary of our very own to 
go to visit these Japanese families who 
live in New York. One of the nicest 
parts about it, is that they chose a 
Japanese Christian man and his wife 
to be our missionaries, because it reallv 
is a great deal friendlier for the lone- 
some, uncomfortable people to have 
someone who knows all that they know. 

When the Japanese father goes to 
work, and the Japanese children go to 
school, then the dear little Japanese 



202 Thirtieth Story 

mother is all alone in the horrid little 
room in the dirty big building. But she 
cleans everything up as spick and span 
as she can, and then, oh dear ! she hears 
a knock at the door! She feels a little 
scared, for she doesn't know a single 
word of English except "yes!" and of 
course lots of times "yes" isn't at all 
the proper thing to say to strange 
people, you know ! So she tiptoes over, 
and opens the door a crack, and pokes 
out her nice little nose. 

"O-hay-o!" ("ohio") says a voice in 
the dark hall outside. That means 
"How do you do?" in Japanese. Well, 
she nearly falls over she is so delighted, 
and in walks our missionary. They do 
have such a nice time chattering away 
in Japanese, and bowing to each other. 
Our missionary knows just how to help 
her best, and she invites her to come to 
a special house you and I have in New 
York, where hymns and preaching are 
all said in Japanese. When it is time 
for our missionary to hurry off to 
another family, the polite Japanese 



Lady With the Welcome Feet 203 

mother says: "Your honorable feet are 
always welcome in my miserable room ! ' ' 

Something nice and warm sings in 
her heart all day, because she has found 
a friend! Then when she goes to our 
special house to the service she meets 
other Japanese people whom she never 
dreamed lived in New York, and she 
learns about Jesus. She brought her 
idols all the way over from Japan with 
her, but after our " missionary- with- 
the-welcome-feet" visits her again and 
again and again, she begins to love 
Jesus very much, and before long she 
and her husband and the children join 
our church. 

I like to think we have this mission- 
ary to be friendly with all these lonely, 
uncomfortable Japanese people in New 
York, don't you? And it's nice that 
when they all go back to Japan in big 
boats they will find more missionaries 
of our very own way over there, too, and 
a church of our very own to go to on 
Sundays. 



THIRTY-FIRST STORY 



THE LITTLE HOUSE THAT WAS 
MADE OUT OF ICE 







wl 







This is the home of the small Eskimo, 

Made out of ice and glistening white snow. 

There isn't much color on anything there, 

It's just as snow-white as this picture is bare. 

204 



UV 



"THE HOUSE-THAT- WAS-MADE- 
OUT-OF-ICE" 

B'rrrrr! How would you like to 
be real, real cold today? So cold that 
you would have to bundle up in all the 
warm clothes you have? I think it 
would be fun, so let's pretend we are 
going on a trip toward the North Pole, 
to a very cold country called Alaska, 
where there is snow all the year round, 
both winter and summer. 

Everything for miles and miles and 
miles is simply covered with glittering 
white snow, and there can't be trains 
or automobiles or wagons because there 
are no roads. So we will have to ride 
on a sled pulled by dogs, oh such 
frisky fierce-looking dogs! But how 
they can fly over the snow, and never 
dump you into a snowdrift, either! 

Way off in the distance there is a 
funny little round white mound, per- 

205 



206 Thirty-first Story 

haps you think it is only a lot of soft 
snow, but I may as well tell you right 
away that it is a house! And it's all 
made out of ice, every bit of it, even 
the furniture inside. 

I can just hear you saying: "Dear 
me ! what a dreadful cold house it must 
be," but it really is almost too w^arm 
when all the family crowd inside it. It 
looks like a giant white bowl turned up- 
side down, doesn't it? It is built of 
blocks of ice, and is called an "igloo." 
The doorway is made very low, and the 
family have to crawl in on their hands 
and knees. Just think how much cold 
air and snow could blow in if the hole 
were larger. 

It is very dark inside the igloo and 
the roof seems very low. There is a 
hole at the very top, you can call it a 
chimney or a window, whichever you 
like. All around the edges of the round 
room is a platform of ice on which soft 
fur skins are laid to make beds and 
chairs. The table is a slab of ice, on 
which is a dish made out of bones, with 



House That Was Made Out of Ice 207 

moss and grease burning in it. Ugh! 
What a dreadful smell it makes ! Some- 
how the oil heats up the inside of the 
igloo, especially with so many people in 
there. 

First of all there is somebody, in a 
fur suit with fur trousers, cooking 
something over the dish of burning 
moss and grease. I suppose you would 
never guess that it is the mother of the 
family, on account of her trousers. But 
you see up in Alaska w T here it is so cold 
it is a much warmer way for her to 
dress ; besides she never heard of skirts 
until she met a missionary. Perhaps 
you would notice a queer bumpy-look- 
ing lump on her back, and you would 
feel sorry because she was deformed. 
But that is the baby in his cradle ! You 
can't imagine a cosier, warmer cradle 
than inside the back of her nice fur 
coat. 

In the igloo there is an older woman 
with only two teeth left, — that is the 
grandmother. Then there is a funny 
little white ball which shyly keeps its 



208 Thirty-first Story 

face turned from us— that is the little 
Eskimo girl. The bigger brown fur ball 
is her brother. He is shy, too, because 
they have never seen any other white 
people, except the missionary. 

They are very kindly going to invite 
us to eat with them, but I'm wondering 
if we will like what they give us— for 
so little of their food will be cooked! 
They eat the meat of the bear and the 
reindeer without cooking it, and they 
never cook fish, either. In fact their 
very name, " Eskimo," means Raw Fish 
Eater. They eat almost every inch of 
a seal, but although I have heard that 
the raw blubber of the seal tastes a little 
like fresh cream, I think neither you 
nor I would like the way it smells. So 
I am rather glad we can get dinner in 
our very own homes today, because our 
trip is over for this time. Next Sunday 
we will go back again. 



THIRTY-SECOND STORY 

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ES- 
KIMO SUN IN WINTER 



\ \ 
V N \ \ \ 






/ 



/ ' / s s 



s *r 




ZSk2L 



The Eskimo sun fairies dance in the 

winter, 
With colors enough to scare even a 

printer, — 
There's yellow and orange and purple and r r 

red — 
They race up the sky, then they race 

back to bed ! 
Yet even more cheerful, we understand, 
Are the schools and the churches in 

Eskimo-land. 



f). 



) 






Something for you to do: Paint yellow, orange, 
green, purple and red streaks in the sky. Perhaps 
you could even remember that grown-up people call 
it "Aurora Borealis !" 



209 



"WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ES- 
KIMO SUN IN THE WINTER" 

Last Sunday we went on a visit to 
a queer little Eskimo igloo up in Alaska 
• — the little round house-built-of-ice. I 
suppose you remember how we had to 
travel on a sled drawn by four or five 
dogs, because Alaska is a country where 
there is snow all the year round. 

One very strange thing about Alaska 
I did not tell you last week, and that is 
about the sun. It keeps dark in Alaska 
for three months everv winter, and 
they do not even see the sun. Then 
after three months, it begins to get light 
for a little while at noon, and as spring 
comes on the days get longer and longer 
until at last it hardly gets dark at all, 
all day long. The Eskimo people hardly 
know when to go to bed ! Of course that 
part of it is ever so nice for the children, 
but just think how unpleasant it would 
be to live in a country where it gets dark 
six weeks before Christmas, and stays 

210 



The Eskimo Sun in Winter 211 

that way for three long bitter cold 
months. 

It is then that the family stay in the 
little round ice igloo, and while the bone 
dish of burning moss is spluttering and 
making a dreadful smell, the children 
sprawl out on the fur rugs and their 
grandmother tells them this story of 
what happens to the sun in winter. Of 
course it's not true, for it's a fairy 
story. 

"Once upon a time there was sun all 
the year round in Eskimo-land, but that 
was before the fairies that live in the 
sun learned to dance. Then they were 
good little fairies, who quietly went to 
bed every night when it got dark. They 
not only went to bed, but they went fast 
asleep, and they slept until the sun said 
' Wake up,' then they jumped out of 
bed and put on their pale yellow dresses 
and the first thing the Eskimo people 
knew it was morning. Because the 
fairies had walked right in through the 
ice window and made the darkness 
bright. 



212 Thirty-second Story 

"Well that was all very nice, and the 
way it should be, but one day the sun 
said: 'Dear Sun Fairies, I am going to 
be away longer than overnight this 
time. It will be months before I get 
back, because I am going to make things 
especially hot on the other side of the 
world. While I am gone I expect every 
one of you to stay in bed. I don't want 
these Eskimo people to see you at all 
until I get back. It will do them good 
to be in the dark for a while, do you 
understands 

" 'Oh yes, sir, we understand V sang 
the fairies, and shut their eyes tight, 
pretending they were fast asleep. But 
they squinted enough to* see the sun 
packing up for his hottest trip some- 
where. Then off he tiptoed, and Es- 
kimo-land was ever so dark. Dark like 
it is today. Eskimo people did not 
know what to make of it. They did not 
know whether it was day or night. 
They just hated it. 

"The fairies hated it, too. But they 
kept on staying in bed, only they had 






The Eskimo Sun in Winter 213 

tlieir eyes wide open. 'I can't stand 
this any longer/ said one fairy, 'this is 
too dismal for words/ So she slipped 
out of bed and put on her yellow 
dress and skipped right up the sky! 
But all the time she kept whisper- 
ing a soft ' S'sh' to the clouds and the 
stars, it sounded like silk rubbing on 
silk, and they knew it meant: ' Don't 
tell on me for doing this, will you?' 
Then up jumped another fairy: 'I'm 
all slept out, too!' she whispered, and 
she put on her yellow dress and danced 
up in the sky, whispering 'S'sh/ Then 
all the fairies got up, and some put on 
red dresses and some put on green ones 
and some put on violet ones, and they 
all danced in the sky. 

"Then the Eskimo people rushed out 
of their dark igloos to see the beautiful 
lights in the sky. 'It is the sun f airies V 
they shouted to each other, but the 
dancing fairies whispered 'S'sh/ 

"Well, every winter since then the 
fickle sun has left the Eskimo-land for 
some other place, but just as often as 



214 Thirty-second Story 

they dare the sun fairies dance in the 
sky in their brightest dresses, and you 
can still hear them say 'S'sh.' " 

How the Eskimo children did love the 
grandmother's story ! There is just this 
much truth in it, that during the three 
long dark winter months there really 
are great northern lights in the sky 
called Aurora Borealis, and if you listen 
very hard you really can hear some- 
thing that sounds like silk rubbing on 
silk. Even the missionaries say so. 

The missionaries don't like the dark 
winter months, either, but the Eskimo 
people love the mission schools and 
churches after they got used to the idea. 
But it was- hard work to do it, oh so 
hard ! Then, too, one church ran away, 
and another was eaten up by dogs!! 
Yes, that is really true, even if does 
sound queer : for one church was carried 
away by a great stream of water, and 
the other was made of whalebone cov- 
ered with seal skins, and some hungry 
dogs really did gobble it up for their 
supper. 






THIRTY-THIRD STORY 

TOTEM POLE LAND 



^ 



<*>! 



A totem pole is a family tree 
Showing an Indian's An-ces-try. 
Here are some bears, and here are 

some birds 
Telling his story without any 

words. 



Ve 



rap 



Something for you to do : Use 
your very brightest greens and 
reds and blues and yellows to 
paint these hideous heads. Aren't 
they fierce? 

215 



7 



a 



TOTEM POLE LAND" 



For two Sundays we have been on a 
visit to a very, very cold part of Alaska 
where the Eskimos live; so today we 
will visit another part of Alaska, where 
there is snow only in winter, and where 
trees and grass and vegetables can grow 
in the summer, and men can get wood 
to build their houses, instead of using 
blocks of ice ! 

Their houses are not at all pretty, we 
would call them shanties, but in front 
of some of the houses stand the queerest 
poles you ever saw in all your life! 
Very tall poles with queer carved faces 
on them, the faces often painted red, 
black, blue, yellow or green. 

"What can they be for?" I hear you 
ask. Well, a totem pole is simply the 
way these Alaskans have of writing 
down their family names and histories ! 

216 



Totem Pole Land 217 

Every family believes that way, way 
back there was an animal member of 
their family, maybe it was a bear, so 
the bear is carved at the top of the pole. 
Then someone from a bear family mar- 
ried someone from a raven family, so 
then a big ugly bird is added to the 
pole; after which comes a history of 
family events in other carvings. After 
it is all done, he paints it in bright 
colors and puts it up in front of his log 
cabin and feels ever so proud of it. 

In Alaska they eat a great many ani- 
mals we never see except in the Zoo. 
Seals and whales and bears. A man 
who has a bear carved at the top of his 
totem pole has to be almost dying from 
hunger before he would think of eating 
bear meat! If it should happen that 
there was absolutely nothing else to eat, 
and he was simply starving, then he 
might eat just a little bit of bear meat, 
but he would feel very badly about it 
and say: "I am so sorry to have to eat 
my friends!" 

This grown-up man is very sure that 



218 Thirty-third Story 

all kinds of dreadful evil spirits live 
in the air and the trees and the water. 
When the sun is setting he is afraid 
that wicked goblins may be dancing 
right into his house, and when night 
comes on he thinks he can hear horrible 
demons howling in the darkness. So it 
is no wonder that when he is so afraid 
of evil spirits, all his children are dread^ 
fully afraid too. 

When someone in an Alaskan family 
gets sick they send for a "medicine- 
man!" He is a fearful sight, for his 
face is painted in all sorts of colors, and 
he wears a big jingling necklace of 
bear's teeth around his neck, and on 
his head are reindeer horns ! 

He comes dancing into the little house 
beating noisily on a drum: Thumpety- 
thump ! Thumpety-thump ! You see he 
thinks an evil spirit has gotten into the 
sick person, and he is trying to drive 
it away. 

I am glad that there are missionaries 
in Alaska to tell all these poor scared 



Totem Pole Land 219 

people that God's world is packed with 
love and goodness, so they need not be 
afraid. As soon as the Alaskans know 
about Jesus they love Him just the way 
you and I do. 



THIRTY-FOURTH STORY 

HOW WE GET OUR PINK FISH 





The fishes called salmon are always quite pink, 
And they taste very nice, so most people think! 
They're caught in Alaska, in wild rocky rivers, 
So dang'rous it gives us comfortable shivers. 
In many a factory all over that land 
Ten thousand pink salmon are now being canned. 



220 



"HOW WE GET OUR PINK 
FISH" 

We have been having very short little 
vacation trips to Alaska every Sunday 
recently, so today I thought I would 
take you fishing up there ! 

It is going to be far more exciting 
than any fishing you ever heard of be- 
fore, so perhaps it would be better for 
us just to watch. To begin with, we 
shall see the father of the family get 
out his canoe, which he made by him- 
self, out of skins. It is so light that 
he can carry it on his back from his 
house to the river, yet it is so strong 
that his wife and the three children can 
sit in it. 

Even his little son knows how to pad- 
dle the canoe, for he often has to go 
out all alone to catch some pink fish for 
supper. Pink fish are called salmon: 
I wonder if you ever ate one? When 
the little Alaskan boy goes out all alone, 
he does not take a fishing rod with hook 

221 



222 Thirty-fourth Story 

and line as a white boy would, because 
he spears the fish ! 

It is quite hard, for he has to stand 
up in the front of the tippy canoe, with 
his spear in his hand. There is a line 
fastened to the end of the spear, so that 
he can pull it back after he has thrown 
it. 

Along swims a nice fat pink salmon, 
very fast. Splash! Zip! The boy has 
thrown the spear, and hit the fish, and 
in a minute there is the big pink salmon 
squirming wildly around in the canoe. 
Now that he has caught the family 
supper, he hurries home with it! 

But even that is easy, just catching 
one fish for supper, compared to what 
the father does when he spends day 
after day catching pink fish, for of 
course he can't stay in one place all the 
time, he has to go down the river in his 
canoe. The river is full of rocks and 
the water rushes over the rocks with a 
tremendous noise ! Swish, swash, swirl, 
bang, zip, bang, swirl, swish, swash ! It 
really looks as if no canoe could possibly 






How We Get Our Pink Fish 223 

get through such angry wild water. 
The little boat tosses around, this way 
and that way, but the father knows how 
to guide it and finally he reaches calmer 
water where there are many pink 
salmon. 

The next time you go to the grocery 
store on an errand for mother, I wish 
you would find the shelf where there 
are rows and rows of cans marked 
"Salmon." On each one will be a pic- 
ture of a big pink fish which some nice 
Alaskan father caught for you and me 
to eat. 

And I think maybe an Alaskan 
mother in a salmon factory cut up the 
pink fish and put it into the cans which 
you can see in your grocery store. It 
is not very nice in the salmon factory, 
for it smells of all the fish, but she is 
poor and needs the money for her 
family. But I think when her children 
grow up maybe they will have a better 
time, because they can go to the mission 
school, and learn to read and to play 
and to worship God. 



THIRTY-FIFTH STORY 

IN A CHINESE KITCHEN 




On the wall of the kitchen this idol is pasted, 
And once every day some good rice is wasted 
By filling the bowl, which is placed on the shelf, 
As if the old idol could eat it himself! 
Of course being paper, he can't eat at all, 
He can't even budge from his place on the wall! 



Something for you to do : You can't possibly put 
too many different colors on the idol, for every bit 
of his dress and his hat are a different shade ! 

224 



"IN A CHINESE KITCHEN" 

I am going to take you into a Chinese 
kitchen today, and show you a little 
Chinese girl who is watching the 
Chinese cook get dinner ready. Most 
of the boys and girls in God's Family 
about whom I have told you so far have 
rather pretty names, like Butterfly, and 
Rustling Grass and Sookie, but nobody 
could possibly like the name of this 
little Chinese girl, she didn't like it her- 
self, for it was "Not Wanted/' 

The truth of the matter is that when 
she was born her father and mother had 
three little daughters already, and had 
hoped the new baby would be a boy. So 
when they found they had another girl 
they didn't much care what they called 
it, because she really was "not wanted." 
That seems as good a name as any to 
show the gods they weren't very well 
pleased. But now "Not Wanted" had 

225 



226 Thirty-fifth Story 

no father and mother, any more, and 
lived with her grandmother, and you 
will see that the poor dear was "not 
wanted " there, either! 

So now let us go back to the Chinese 
kitchen, which we will find very differ- 
ent from ours. For one thing the win- 
dows are made of paper, so they do not 
let in very much light, but oh ! so much 
cold air! The kitchen range is not 
bright and shining like the one in your 
house, but it is built of earth and bricks, 
and they call it a Kang. On the w r all 
above it is a little shelf, where the pic- 
ture of a perfectly hideous man is 
pasted, he is all shades of red and blue 
and yellow and green. You will be ter- 
ribly surprised to know that "Not 
Wanted " took a little bowl of rice, and 
laid it on the shelf before him, saying 
in Chinese: 

'"Come God of the Kitchen, 
Oh, Grandfather Chang! 

Come, here is your pudding 
And here is your fang. 



In a Chinese Kitchen 227 

Go fly up to heaven 

Begone in a trice 
Forget all the bad 

And tell only what's nice." 

[Translated by Isaac T. Headland] 

So you surely have guessed that the 
horrid old paper picture is really an 
idol, a paper kitchen god to whom the 
Chinese offer rice every day because 
they think he spends his nights up in 
heaven telling about them, and if they 
give him rice maybe he will tell only the 
good things. Once a year they get a 
new paper god for the kitchen. 

But even stranger than the kitchen 
was the dinner which was not at noon, 
nor in the evening, but in the middle 
of the afternoon, for in China they only 
have two meals a day, the first is called 
" early rice" and the second is called 
"late rice." They eat rice so much in 
China that they talk about it a great 
deal,— instead of saying "good morn- 
ing" to their friends, they say "Have 
you eaten your rice?" And once when 



228 Thirty-fifth Story 

"Not Wanted " fell down and broke her 
right hand everybody said: " 'Not 
Wanted' has broken her rice hand"— 
because, you see, everybody eats rice 
with the right hand ! 

So this was "late rice" they were go- 
ing to have, and you never saw so many 
women and girls as sat down at the 
table with her! You might almost 
think it was a boarding-house, but it 
was only her grandmother, her sisters,, 
her aunts and cousins who all lived in 
the same house, and ate their meals to- 
gether, while the grandfather, uncles 
and boy cousins lived in other rooms far 
distant where the women never went. 

Each little sister and cousin and aunt 
took a bowl from a side table and filled 
it from the great wooden bucket of 
steaming rice, over which they poured 
the juice and leaves of some boiled cab- 
bage. Then they each picked up a pair 
of chop sticks, and sat down at the 
table. They held the bowls close to their 
mouths, and pushed the food into their 
mouths with the chopsticks. They have 



In a Chinese Kitchen 229 

a funny proverb in China which says: 
" The stomach loves surprises," and I 
think a Chinese stomach gets them! 
For besides the rice they eat bamboo 
sprouts, raw fish, salted squash seeds, 
candied lotus roots, eggs that are really 
very old, and queer sticky dishes with 
vermicelli floating around in it. When 
they have chicken, they throw the bones 
wider the table, even the grandmother! 
Never once during the meal was there 
a time when thanks were spoken to the 
kind Father in Heaven who sent them 
this food, because in China the people 
do not know r about God at all, they only 
worship idols,— even in the room where 
they are eating this queer meal, there 
was a hideous brass idol sitting up on 
a shelf and staring straight across the 
room with his ugly brass eyes. 

There was one thing about "Not 
Wanted" that nobody liked, and that 
was her temper! She kept losing it, all 
the time; although you could really 
hardly say it was lost when you could 
hear it slamming doors, and saying 



230 Thirty-fifth Story 

cross words, and slapping people, and 
being really a very noisy, disagreeable 
temper ! It made her family keep right 
on not wanting "Not Wanted/' al- 
though I think it was partly their fault, 
because they never loved her enough or 
spoke gently to her. 

I told you that her own mother and 
father had died, and by this time her 
grandmother was so tired of this cross- 
patch granddaughter that one of her 
uncles finally said: " Tomorrow I will 
try to sell the little nuisance, or else I 
will give her to those white-faced mis- 
sionaries to keep. So don't worry any 
more about her, honorable mother, I 
will surely get rid of her tomorrow for 
you!" 

So all that night poor little "Not 
Wanted" cried and cried, although she 
did it very quietly, because her grand- 
mother kept a stick on hand to beat the 
children if they cried too loud. 

"Not Wanted" had heard the most 
dreadful stories about our missionaries. 
She had heard that they took out the 



In a Chinese Kitchen 231 

black eyes of little yellow Chinese girls 
and sent them over to America for the 
poor white girls whose ugly eyes were 
blue ! She had even heard that the mis- 
sionaries cut up little Chinese girls into 
tiny pieces and put them in medicine 
bottles to send to America for medicine ! 
Did you ever hear such nonsense % But 
poor little "Not Wanted " believed 
every word of it, so no wonder she cried 
all night long. 



THIRTY-SIXTH STORY 



THE DRAGON THAT 

SWALLOWS THE 

SUN EVERY DAY 




Have you ever heard that the 

Chinese say 
That a dragon swallows the sun 

every day? 
They used to believe it — yes, every 

word, 
But now lots of Chinese about God have^ 

heard. 
And soon the old tale will be only a myth 
On rainy days to amuse children with. 

232 



"THE DRAGON-THAT-SWAL- 
LOWS-THE-SUN-EVERY- 
DAY" 

Last Sunday I told you about a little 
Chinese girl named "Not Wanted" who 
had such a horrid temper that her uncle 
was either going to sell her, or give her 
to a missionary. Poor "Not Wanted" 
hardly knew which of the two dreadful 
things she would rather have happen, 
so I fear she was ever so happy the next 
day w r hen her uncle had a perfectly ter- 
rible toothache. He groaned and he 
moaned all day long, and of course 
could not think of leaving the house. 

"But I shall be well tomorrow!" he 
said crossly, so poor "Not Wanted" felt 
unhappy all over again. 

Now it happened that on this very 
day, queer old Blind Chun, the Story 
Teller, came into their courtyard, feel- 
ing his way with a stick. The grand- 

233 



234 Thirty-sixth Story 

mother and the aunts hobbled away to 
find pieces of cash, which they gave him 
so he would tell them stories. 

This is one of the stories he told, 
which everyone had heard lots of times 
before — it's only a fairy story to us, 
but most of them believed it, I think! 
" Celestial ladies !" said Blind Chun 
bowing very low, "I would fill your 
worshipful ears with a story of the 
great god Pwan-Ku. For be it known 
to you that at the beginning of time the 
great god Pwan-Ku formed the earth 
with hammer and chisel. He toiled and 
he worked for eighteen thousand years, 
and each day that he worked he got six 
feet larger than he was the day before ! 
Finally he got so very big, that to make 
room for him the heavens began rising 
way, way up in the air and the earth 
grew larger and larger. Then when the 
heavens were round and the earth was 
smooth, he died. I tell you the truth, 
when I say that his giant head became 
mountains ; his mighty breath the great 
winds and clouds ; and his voice became 



Dragon That Swallows the Sun 235 

the thunder. His arms and legs were 
the four poles ; his veins, the rivers ; his 
muscles, the hills; and his flesh, the 
fields. His eyes became the stars; his 
skin and hair, the grass and trees ; and 
the insects which he touched became 
people. Surely I speak only the 
truth!" 

The minute he was through "Not 
"Wanted" spoke up! "Oh but, Blind 
Chun, last time you told us a very dif- 
ferent story about the earth, and I don't 
see how both can be true. You said 
before, that the whole earth was built 
on the back of a perfectly huge dragon." 

Blind Chun scratched his old head, 
and smiled: "Your ears are as long as 
the roof tree of a pagoda, young lady! 
I fear you have stored too much wis- 
dom in your stomach ! But both stories 
are quite true, for the earth is indeed 
built on top of the great dragon who 
swallows the sun every day!" 

"Hurry up and tell us about that!" 
said "Not Wanted." 

So Blind Chun said: "Way down 



236 Thirty-sixth Story 

under the earth the dragon lies asleep. 
Some people say it is a giant turtle— 
maybe so. Anyhow it doesn't do to dig 
down very far in the earth because if 
you tickle his ribs, he will wake up and 
be very angry. He rolls over, and then 
that makes an earthquake. Buildings 
topple over, and people get hurt. It has 
often happened. When the white 
Christian people built their schoolhouse 
they dug way down in the ground to 
make a cellar. They did not know what 
we Chinese people know about the 
dragon, so down they dug and will you 
believe me! The dragon snorted and 
snorted ; the Christians said it was only 
a thunder storm, but he did it to show 
them he was furious. " 

"My! what a tremendous big dragon 
he must be I" said "Not Wanted, " shud- 
dering. 

"Yes, he is just as big as the earth !" 
said Blind Chun. "When it rains, the 
dragon is playing with his pearls, 
splashing them on the earth for the fun 
of seeing them bounce back. And every 



Dragon That Swallows the Sun 237 

single night he wakes up, opens his big 
jaws and swallows up the sun. He has 
his spirit servants— wind and water, 
thunder and lightning. Everybody in 
China knows this is true, because the 
old Chinese flag had a picture of the 
dragon swallowing the sun on it." 

But one of the boy cousins who went 
to school said: "But China has a new 
flag now, sir, with five stripes : red, blue, 
yellow, white and black. And I have 
heard it is all nonsense about the 
dragon!" 

"That is the way with life!" said 
Blind Chun, as he left, "the young 
people think they know everything. 
These stories sound true, don't they?" 

"Not very!" said the young cousin, 
but "Not Wanted" said: "Can't you 
come again tomorrow ? I 'm hoping my 
uncle won't be over his toothache!" 

Which was not very kind of her, was 
it? 



THIRTY-SEVENTH STORY 

TURTLE TALES AND CHICKEN 
TAILS 




2^7 



«■ 




I think this tale teaches something quite right 
That to older people we be most polite i 
There's room in God's world for everyone here, 
And we'll be old, too, in some far-away year! 



238 



"TURTLE-TALES AND CHICKEN 
TAILS " 

A Chinese toothache can hurt even 
worse than an American one, because 
no one knows what to do for it, so the 
poor uncle of our little Chinese friend 
"Not Wanted" had such a big swollen 
cheek that he simply could not leave 
the house to take her anywhere to get 
rid of her, as he had threatened. "Not 
AYanted" was perfectly delighted, espe- 
cially as Blind Chun, the Story Teller, 
came groping his w r ay into their court- 
yard again. The grandmother and the 
aunts found some more Chinese cash for 
him, so he started right in with this 
Turtle Tale, which they had heard many 
times before, of course: 

"Once upon a time there was an old 
farmer named Ah-Po, who lived five 
hundred years ago. Ah-Po knew 
everything. The people would say to 

239 



240 • Thirty-seventh Story 

him : 'Will it rain today?' and he would 
answer: 'Not today, but you will need 
your bamboo hats at this time tomor- 
row/ Well, one day Ah-Po caught a 
big mountain turtle. It was so very 
large that it took both of Ah-Po 's sons 
to carry it home. 

" 'We will not kill the turtle/ said 
Ah-Po, 'for he is too old to eat. We 
will keep him and watch the rings grow 
round his legs each year. ' So they gave 
him a nice corner in the barnyard, and 
fed him rice and water. 

"Now Ah-Po kept many chickens, 
and for three months the turtle and the 
chickens lived quite happily together. 
Then one day the young chickens 
walked up to the turtle and began to 
laugh at him. 'Aren't you ever going 
back to your own home?' they asked. 
'You are so large that you take up some 
of our room. We need it all. You fool- 
ish old thing, do you suppose our fathers 
and mothers want you? No, not one 
of us likes to even see you around. I 
suppose it will be years before you die. 



Turtle Tales and Chicken Tails 241 

Yet nobody likes you! You are not 
clean, you make too much dirt. Look 
at your water bowl this minute, it is 
upside down, and your rice bowl is all 
mussy, with rice on our floor. Too 
many flies come here to see you, none 
of our family like flies !' 

"Well, the turtle waited until the 
silly young things had finished scolding, 
then he said : ' Do you think I came here 
myself? Who put me here? Do you 
suppose I like being cooped up here in 
jail? I never eat any of your rice, and 
I never disturb any of you. If our 
master sold your whole family he would 
only get one piece of silver for all of 
you. So who are you to find fault with 
me?' 

"So the chickens hurried home and 
told their mother all about it. Then the 
next day the old hen herself walked up 
to the turtle and said: 'How dare you 
scold my children? How dare you say 
all my family are only worth one piece 
of silver ? Do you think you are worth 
anything yourself? You are so tough 



242 Thirty-seventh Story 

your own master could not eat you, and 
the market people would never buy you. 
I suppose you'll just live on in our yard 
a thousand years or so. Then you will 
die, and they will throw you into the 
Nobody-Knows-Lake. ' 

"Then the turtle said: 'I am a moun- 
tain turtle. I come from such a wise 
family that it is hard for man to catch 
me. Very learned men like doctors 
know that my skin is good for skin 
disease, my forefeet are good for the 
devil-sickness in children, for they drive 
the devil away. My shells are good for 
sore throat, my stomach is good for 
stomach-ache, and my bones are good 
for toothache. Once when some of your 
chickens were sick, the master fed them 
three turtle eggs and they got well. So 
you can see I am a very useful creature. 
Yet I have to stay cooped up in this 
horrid place with your silly children. 
They steal my rice, yet I never bother 
you. If I had some of my own people 
here, other big young turtles, then you 
would not dare came near us. for they 



Turtle Tales and Chicken Tails 243 

would snap at you. But I have gotten 
over the snapping age. It is like this 
with me: I know that yesterday your 
silly young chickens scolded me ; today 
you scold me; tomorrow and the next 
tomorrow generations of unhatched 
chickens will hop over here to scold me 
—but I will be living on and on, long 
after our master has chopped off your 
heads and eaten you up. I am so old 
that I am wise, I know that the earth 
is large enough for all creatures, but 
you think the earth was made only for 
chickens. If you should be able to scare 
me aw T ay today, tomorrow you would 
begin on the poor dog, and the next day 
you might even try to get rid of the 
master. This barnyard is large enough 
for birds, chickens, ducks, geese, pigs 
and myself. It makes our master happy 
to have us all here. Now I am done. 
Go away.' 

"So the chickens went away quite 
ashamed. The mother hen said: 'Chil- 
dren, the turtle is right. It is foolish 
to want everything. We must all live 



244 Thirty-seventh Story 

in peace with one another. The barn- 
yard is not ours, we only use it a little 
while till we die. We must remember 
to honor old age. It is sometimes hard 
to live to be old. So let us be gracious 
to the turtle. I want you to bow to 
him every morning, for everyone knows 
in China that youth must reverence old 
age.' " 

When the story was over the grand- 
mother said to Blind Chun: "That is 
a good story, and the best part of it is 
that young people in China do reverence 
old people, and bow to them." 



THIRTY-EIGHTH STORY 

"A RIDE IN A WHEELBARROW" 




You've heard of jinrik'shas and queer bullock carts, 
But oh! to be there when the wheelbarrow starts! 
"Squeak!" says the wheel as it slowly goes round, 
"Squawk!" it remarks as it rolls o'er the ground. 
"Boo-hoo!" cries "Not Wanted," so terribly scared 
To think that in China no one for her cared. 

Something for you to do : Paint her little jacket 
yellow, and her little trousers green, and the roses 
in her hair red! 



245 



A BIDE IN A WHEELBARROW 

Of course you all know what a wheel- 
barrow is, but I am quite sure you never 
thought of being trundled through the 
streets of a city, the way "Not Wanted' ' 
was trundled through the streets of 
Amoy, the morning her uncle took her 
away from home to get rid of her. 
Probably you remember that she had 
a very disagreeable temper, and there 
.were enough little girls to feed in their 
household, anyway! 

Little girls in China (all who are not 
Christians yet, I mean) have their feet 
bound up into a very small space so 
they will fit into the tiniest silk shoes 
you ever saw. Of course, it hurts them 
so much and makes their feet so useless 
that they never can walk far all the 
rest of their lives, and that is one reason 
why in China women and girls ride in 
wheelbarrows. 

I just wish you could have seen "Not 
246 



A Ride in a Wheelbarrow 247 

Wanted " perched on one side of her 
wheelbarrow, with her bundles of 
clothes and her quilt on the other side ! 
Even though she was wearing her very 
best yellow jacket and bright green 
trousers, she was crying as if her heart 
would break as she remembered all the 
perfectly awful things missionaries 
might do to little Chinese girls: pull 
out their eyes, cut them all up, whip 
them and starve them, and oh, dear! 
lots of other ridiculous things! Just 
think what a wonderfully pleasant sur- 
prise she will have when she actually 
meets our dear missionary ! 

Her uncle walked ahead of her on the 
street bowing very politely to the people 
he met. He did it like this: he bowed 
way over, he shook his own hands as 
he said very politely: "Your miserable 
servant is sublimely honored to look 
upon your worshipful countenance!" 
Then the friend he met bowed too, and 
said: "You use up the air in great 
compliments, for it is your humble slave 
who is glorified by this momentous oc- 



248 Thirty-eighth Story 

casion!" You can see how exceedingly 
polite they are in China, and what high- 
sounding words they use! 

Before they got to the missionary's, 
they passed a temple, so her uncle went 
in and made an offering to the hideous 
old wooden idol inside. Then on they 
went through such narrow streets with 
such bumpy stones that "Not Wanted " 
was almost spilled out a number of 
times. But finally they reached a big 
wall, and at a high gate her uncle 
knocked loudly until the gatekeeper 
opened it. Her uncle sent in a big green 
visiting card to the missionary, and was 
ushered into a room with a rocking- 
chair in it. He had n ever seen one he- 
fore, and was very careful not to sit 
in it! 

But when our missionary came in she 
sat down in the rocking-chair with per- 
fect safety! The uncle made a fine 
bow, then he said: " Honored Lady, I 
have outside a worthless little worm of 
the dust whom I wish to bestow upon 
you. She is no good in our household. 



A Ride in a Wheelbarrow 249 

She makes nothing but trouble under 
our rooftree. If there is no room in 
your honorable home, I think I can sell 
her for a long string of cash to a man 
in the city." 

You can imagine how horrified our 
missionary felt to hear him speak so 
easily of selling any little girl. 

"But why do you want to get rid of 
her?" she asked. 

"She is like a little tempest," the 
uncle explained. ' ' She miserably weeps 
and wails like the storms of heaven 
when her bound feet trouble her; she 
kicks and lights and steals when her 
worthless little stomach wants rice that 
is cooked for others ; she is entirely use- 
less to us, but we heard of your gracious 
goodness in keeping the unwanted girls 
of poor families, so we thought you 
might condescend to pack away this 
small nuisance of ours." 

I am sure you agree with me this was 
a very flowery way of telling how no- 
body wanted "Not Wanted," and our 
missionary was curious to see what this 



250 Thirty-eighth Story 

naughty girl looked like. So she went 
out to the courtyard, and there sat 
"Not Wanted" in her wheelbarrow, 
howling and crying ! 

"I bestow her upon you!" said the 
uncle bowing, "she is as your own, to 
beat and correct as your fancy pleases." 

"Not Wanted" screamed and shriek- 
ed and yelled, she hit around with her 
arms and shouted: "I don't want to 
stay with the white devil! I don't 
want to be eaten alive! O honorable 
uncle, take me back to my grand- 
mother's roof tree." But her uncle had 
walked calmly away and left our mis- 
sionary face to face with this howling 
cyclone ! 

Well, she patted her on the back, and 
tried to comfort her until "Not 
Wanted" calmed down a little, and 
sniffled, and wiped her nose on the 
sleeves of her little yellow jacket! Our 
missionary did not like to see that, so 
she sent one of the little girls off to 
bring a handkerchief for this new 
friend. 



A Ride in a Wheelbarrow 251 

She came back in a minute and bow- 
ing in her nicest fashion offered the 
handkerchief to "Not Wanted. " 

"What is it for?" "Not Wanted" 
asked, between sniffles, for she had never 
seen a handkerchief before. 

"It is to wipe your honorable nose 
and your heavenly eyes," the little girl 
answered, and started to wipe the tears 
from "Not Wanted's" wet face. 

Then how she did scream! "No! 
no!" she said, "it is magic! You are 
trying to bewitch me!" She ran away 
so very much frightened that our mis- 
sionary finally said to all the happy 
little girls who live in our Orphanage: 
"Suppose we just let her alone a few 
days ; smile at her kindly and think of 
her lovingly; then she will get used to 
us and love us, I think." 

So for three days everybody smiled 
at "Not Wanted," and offered her 
goodies, but she was still very much 
scared, so she just watched them, and 
watched them, and watched them ! 



THIRTY-NINTH STORY 

LITTLE MISS DAFFODIL 




Little "Not Wanted" was not to blame 

Because she had a horrid name, 

But when she became Miss Daffodil 

She changed, and changed, and changed, until 

Her grandmother said with great surprise: 

"I hardly can believe my eyes!" 



252 



"LITTLE MISS DAFFODIL" 

Do you remember last Sunday how 
"Not Wanted " was brought to our own 
nice Orphange in Amoy, and was the 
most frightened, unhappy little girl in 
all China? 

Well, the next day she cried a good 
deal, too, and she stood off in a corner 
to watch all the other happy jumping 
little children, who seemed to love our 
missionary a lot "Not Wanted " de- 
cided that surely this missionary had 
never eaten any little Chinese girls yet, 
nor ever would, for all these children 
had their two black eyes still safe and 
sound in their heads, and they did seem 
too happy for words. 

She watched them playing, and eat- 
ing, and singing, and saying grace be- 
fore meals, and on the third day a queer 
thing happened ! Down in "Not Want- 

253 



254 Thirty-ninth Story 

ed's" heart something seemed to feel 
very warm and comfortable, something 
in her little throat began to sing, some- 
thing in the tips of her tiny little 
shoes began to want to jump and skip, 
and she herself tagged around after our 
missionary all day, like a small shadow I 
Can you guess what was the matter? 
Why, it was love that was doing this ! 

Someone was loving her, and petting 
her, someone was praising her when she 
did things right, someone was very pa- 
tient with her when she did things 
wrong, someone was showing how that 
Jesus is a real Friend for little chil- 
dren, and "Not Wanted' 9 was begin- 
ning to feel almost the happiest little 
girl in China, when the very nicest thing 
of all happened. 

Our missionary said: " 'Not Want- 
ed/ I really think you need a brand 
new name, dear, because I'm sure you 
know that you are wanted here! I 
wonder what name you would like 
best?" 

'Not Wanted's" face screwed up 



a- 



Little Miss Daffodil 255 

into cute little dimples and smiles, and 
she giggled shyly, 

"Oh, I know!" said another little 
orphan, "let's call her 'Wu Fah Din!' " 
Now in English that means Daffodil, 
and this little girl thought that was 
what "Not Wanted" looked like, with 
her yellow jacket and her green trou- 
sers. So from that minute she became 
"Little Miss Daffodil" to everybody. 

Our missionary told her what bright 
and sunny flowers daffodils are, always 
nodding their dear yellow heads as if 
they were saying, "Yes, I'll be merry 
and cheerful, of course I will!" Little 
Miss Daffodil loved it. She promised 
to be exactly like them, if she could; 
and I know Jesus helped her, for she 
got all out of the habit of grabbing for 
things and being cross and pouting. 

One day she begged for a great 
favor, she asked our missionary if she 
couldn't please be trundled back in a 
wheelbarrow to her grandmother's 
house to pay a call. 

Now our missionary hoped that Miss 



256 Thirty-ninth Story 

Daffodil could do some good in that 
dark dingy house, and even thought 
they would want to take back this little 
new sunbeam. So she let her go, and 
you never saw a more excited lot of 
aunts and cousins and sisters, or a more 
astonished grandmother. 

"What! is this 'Not Wanted V " they 
said. "This smiling girl with big un- 
bound feet who dances around so hap- 
pily *" 

Little Miss Daffodil made a deep bow 
to her grandmother as she said politely : 
"Yes, it is the same girl, aged one ! But 
I have a nice new name now, and I wash 
all over every day, and I clean my 
teeth, and say a prayer to Jesus before 
I eat my rice. There is smiling in my 
heart all day long, the honorable Jesus 
put it there. " 

"Jesus ?" asked the grandmother. 
' ' I never heard of Him before ? Who is 
He?" 

"Well," said Daffodil sitting down 
beside her, "it's like this: Jesus is 
God's son. and we sing songs to him, 



Little Miss Daffodil 257 

and pray to him. I guess you never 
heard that our idols really aren't any 
good at all. But the missionary says 
they are only wood and stones, they 
can't hear anything, or see anything, or 
eat anything we give them. God doesn't 
like to see us bowing to idols. But God 
never hurts us, even when we do wrong. 
He just loves us. And Jesus loves us. 
It's awfully nice, isn't it?" 

They thought it was so mice to have 
this jolly, happy little girl, so brimful 
of queer new stories, that the grand- 
mother said to the grandfather: "Aged 
one," she said, "permit me to keep 
the small granddaughter under our 
roof tree once more, and to send her to 
the Christian school each day in the 
wheelbarrow. She makes sweet flowers 
bloom in our lonely house." 

The grandfather solemnly hemmed 
and hawed and looked important, as 
only Chinese grandfathers can look. 
Then he said : ' ' There shall be rice under 
our rooftree to feed her, and a wheel- 
barrow shall carrv her to school. ' ' 



258 Thirty-ninth Story 

So that is the way the story of Jesus 
entered that dark dingy house, for 
every day when Daffodil was trundled 
home from school, she would tell her 
grandmother and aunts and cousins the 
new story she had heard that day, until 
they all knew about the Babe of 
Bethlehem; the Wise Men; the Kind 
Friend of all little children ; and all the 
other dear stories about Jesus. 



FORTIETH STOET 

HOW A TOY ROOSTER 
PREACHED A SERMON 




"Cook-a-doodle-do !" the real live roosters call, 

But from the toy tin rooster there came no word, at 
all! 

Nor could he give a single proof 
That he could well protect their roof. 

I'm glad they learned that God takes care 

Without that silly rooster there! 

Something for you to do: Paint the ridge of the 
roof red and the tiles green. 



259 



"HOW A TOY ROOSTER 
PREACHED A SERMON " 

I hope you remember my other 
stories about "Not Wanted/' whose 
ugly name was changed to the pretty 
one of Little Miss Daffodil, after she 
went to our very own mission school in 
Amoy, and found out about Jesus. For 
today I have a story about her home, 
which may seem funny to you, although 
I think it is rather sad, too. 

It was like this: Of course after 
Daffodil really got to know about Jesus, 
she had no use at all for the idols. She 
even tried to stop the cook from offer- 
ing a bowl of rice to the green and red 
paper kitchen god, and she hinted to her 
grandmother over and over that it was 
wrong to burn incense before the brass 
idol. But the grandmother, and the 
cook, too, said she might be right or she 

260 



How a Toy Rooster Preached 261 

might be wrong, it was better to be on 
the safe side, and keep on doing the 
same worship in the same old way. 

That seems foolish enough to us, but 
up on their green tiled roof was an 
even stranger thing — a little toy 
rooster! The solemn old grandfather, 
in his black cap with the red button on 
it, had stood beside the house to watch 
the gardener fasten it safely up there. 
You will never guess why— so I shall 
have to tell you that the grandfather's 
room faced the new Christian church, 
which had just been built. The grand- 
father and all the uncles and cousins 
were afraid that dreadful evil spirits 
might fly out from that church straight 
into their courtyard. So the town 
astrologer, who was supposed to be 
wondrous wise, told the grandfather to 
fasten a tin rooster on his roof, for the 
rooster would surely scare away the evil 
spirits. For they would think he might 
crow and flap his wings and wake 
everybody up. So the tin rooster was 
bought, and put up on the roof, and 



262 Fortieth Story 

everybody had felt very safe in Miss 
Daffodil's home for two years. 

One day after she had been going to 
our mission school for a long time she 
said to her grandmother: "Dear aged 
one, I have told you stories of Jesus 
for a long while now, and you always 
say 'Good! Good!' when I finish, yet 
you keep right on offering bowls of rice 
and incense to the idols. Just for one 
day let us try not making any offering 
to the idols, then you can see that the 
one and only God will take care of us." 

Little Miss Daffodil was so dear and 
sweet now, that everybody loved to do 
what she asked, and her grandmother 
actually promised to try it,— just for 
one day. And oh! it was such a rainy 
day, with very high winds and so much 
rain that Miss Daffodil could not go to 
school. All day long no food was of- 
fered to the silly idols, and the aunts 
and cousins cooped up at home had the 
loveliest time, for Little Miss Daffodil 
read them stories from her primer and 
played the games our missionary had 



How a Toy Rooster Preached 263 

taught her. The wind howled and 
raged outside and the rain dashed down 
on the roof making a great racket after 
everybody had gone to bed. 

In the morning— oh dear! in stamped 
the old grandfather looking quite pale 
and seared. 

"Alas! Alas!" he said, "the tin 
rooster lias gone from our roof! The 
gods are angry with us, the evil spirits 
will surely hurt us now!" 

Of course you and I know better, but 
the grandmother and aunts and cousins 
remembered right away that they had 
not worshipped the idols the day before, 
and they were quite sure that must be 
the reason the evil spirits had run away 
with the rooster. But they did not dare 
tell the grandfather what they had 
done; they simply tried to please the 
idols by offering them each a perfectly 
huge bowl of rice and by burning sweet 
incense before them all day long. They 
could hardlv wait for Daffodil to come 
home from school, so they could tell her 



264 Fortieth Story 

how unlucky it was not to worship the 
idols. 

But when she finally got home, lo and 
behold! our missionary was with her, 
and of course it would be impolite to 
scold a naughty child before an honored 
guest, so they were as polite as possible. 

"Sit higher! Sit here in this best 
seat!" they all called. "No! No! don't 
sit down near the door— sit here!" 

But our missionary had good Chinese 
manners, and she sat quite near the 
door and drank a cup of tea, and ate 
some little cakes, wrapping all that she 
could not eat in her handkerchief to 
take home with her, for that's the way 
to do in China ! 

Then she bowed to the grandmother 
and said: "I hope you have peace?" 

"There is no peace in this house- 
hold," said the grandmother, and she 
told about how the evil spirits had done 
away with their tin rooster. 

You should have heard Miss Daffodil 
giggle ! Our missionary smiled, too, as 



How a Toy Rooster Preached 265 

she reached in her pocket and actually 
pulled out the little tin rooster. She 
explained very politely that it really 
wasn't the evil spirits at all, but the 
very high winds the day before which 
had blown the rooster off the slippery 
wet tile roof and had blown him right 
over to the door of the Christian church, 
where he lay until time for prayer meet- 
ing that night. 

Then he had been picked up and car- 
ried into the meeting and the minister 
showed it to everybody and said the 
rooster had blown off Miss Daffodil's 
roof. He said that of course a silly tin 
rooster could do no good, could it? 
Then up got a very new Chinese Chris- 
tian and said he had never had a tin 
rooster, to be sure, but all his life he 
had had paper idols pasted on liis doors 
to keep out the evil spirits, but now that 
he loved Jesus, he knew he could trust 
Him to take care of his family, so he 
had burned up the paper gods. An- 
other man said he knew now that there 
were no such things as evil spirits in 



266 Fortieth Story 

God's world; in fact everybody had 
something to say about evil spirits and 
what they used to do before they were 
Christians, until you could almost say 
that the silly tin rooster had preached 
the sermon that night, couldn't you? 

The grandmother took back their tin 
rooster, and looked very serious: "I am 
interested to know that so many of our 
honorable neighbors believe in Jesus. 
If they can trust Him to take care of 
them, perhaps some day I may come to 
trust Him, too." 

And I surely hope she will, don't 
you? 



FORTY-FIRST STORY 

THE LITTLE BOY WHO WAS 
CALLED BY A GIRL'S 
NAME. 




Heue in his basket see "Pretty Giri" sit! 
Yet this girl's a boy— that's queer, isn't it? 
But I guess you remember his poor mother's fear 
That some bad evil spirits might overhear, 
And whisk her dear baby out of her sight, 
If they guessed 'twas a boy Mie was hugging so tight ! 

267 



"THE LITTLE BOY -WHO -WAS 
CALLED-BY-A-GIRL'S-NAME" 

There was one person in the house 
where Little Miss Daffodil lived who 
was really more important than every- 
body else put together, and that was a 
tiny round baby boy called " Pretty 
Girl" to fool the evil spirits into think- 
ing he was really a girl, and of no im- 
portance at all. He wore a girl's ear- 
ring in one of his ears, too ! Think of 
that! 

Everybody from the grandfather 
down to gardener loved that little boy 
who was called by a girl's name, and 
when he grew old enough to walk 
around alone and talk quite plainly and 
learn to do things, our friend Little 
Miss Daffodil timidly suggested to her 
grandmother how nice it would be if 
"Pretty Girl" could go every day to 
the church kindergarten which your 

268 



Boy Who Was Called a Girl's Name 269 

money and my money takes care of in 
Amoy. She told how he could learn 
cunning motion songs, and little verses 
about his cute hands and feet, and how 
to build things with blocks, and how to 
count the colored beads on a string. 
Oh ! ever so many fascinating things. 

The wise old grandfather was asked 
what he thought about it, and after a 
great deal of grown-up talking between 

aunts and uncles, "Prettv Girl" was ac- 

/ %j 

tually sent to the kindergarten. Some- 
times he w^ent with Little Miss Daffodil 
in her wheelbarrow, but he tumbled 
out so often, that usually the gardener 
put him in a basket like the one in your 
picture: it swung from one end of a 
bamboo pole which the gardener bal- 
anced on his shoulder; in the other 
basket was a live duck quacking noisily, 
while in the top bundle were some vege- 
tables ! 

Your money and my money does lots 
of good in China, but in all the city of 
Amoy one of the very nicest things it 
does is to take care of this Kinder- 



270 Forty-first Story 

garten. " Pretty Girl" did love it all 
so much ! He was such a little round 
ball of a boy that to see him trying to 
"fly like a birdie" made all the older 
children want to eat-him-right-up, he 
was so cunning! Every day when the 
gardener carried him home in his funny 
baby-carriage basket, he "showed off" 
to his delighted family. His grand- 
father would say: "Is there a brighter 
boy in all China?" Then grandmother 
said: "S'sh! Remember the evil spirits 
will be jealous of 'Pretty Girl!' A 
stupid little girl he is — oh, so stupid ! 
Doesn't know anything at all! Can't 
learn anything, either ! Stupid ! Stupid ! 
Nobody loves 'Pretty Girl' — oh no!" 
But of course you and I know she said 
all this nonsense to fool the evil spirits 
who might be listening. 

Well, one morning the gardener came 
with his funny baby-carriage basket to 
carry "Pretty Girl" to school, but the 
poor little boy was very sick — hot all 
over, and crying because something hurt 
him somewhere. 



Boy Who Was Called a Girl's Name 271 

His grandmother said: "Oh dear, 
there is a little dragon spirit inside 
him, let us make a dreadful noise and 
scare him away!" 

So they beat on drums and tin pans, 
making a terrible racket, but "Pretty 
Girl" cried even harder, so then they 
sent for a Chinese doctor, who really 
was not what we would call a doctor at 
all. He was an Ignoramus, as you will 
soon see! For he said it was surely a 
dragon spirit inside "Pretty Girl." So 
what do you suppose he did? He 
brought out a dreadful long needle and 
punched it right into the baby, "to let 
the pain out/' he said. But dear me! 
to hear "Pretty Girl" yell, you could 
easily know that plan had not worked! 
So the solemn doctor blinked and 
blinked through his big horn glasses, 
and prescribed some doses of the fol- 
lowing medicine : one centipede, the eye 
of a snake, the left claw of an eagle, 
the liver of a frog and a part of his 
grandfather 's finger nail. ' ' Grind these 
all up," he said, "then roll them into 



272 Forty-first Story 

three pills, after he has swallowed them, 
he w r ill be well. ' ' 

So away he went. But after this 
medicine was swallowed, he kept right 
on being just as sick. The sun was set- 
ting by this time, so his mother ran out 
to the street and called : ' ' Come home ! 
Come home!" For she thought her 
little boy had three souls and that one 
of them had wandered away, and he 
could not be well again until it came 
home. 

Then Little Miss Daffodil spoke up: 
"The Christians know how to cure the 
sick in their big hospital. Do let us 
send ' Pretty Girl' to them!" 

There was another grown-up talking 
between grandfather and uncles, then 
the baby was bundled up in a quilt and 
carried in the gardener's basket to our 
beautiful hospital in Amoy. When our 
Dr. Missionary saw the baby and heard 
about the needle and the queer medicine 
he felt a little angry, but he knew just 
exactly what to do, of course. "Pretty 
Girl" was put in a clean white bed, and 



Boy Who Was Called a Girl's Name 273 

the next day I really believe every one 
of his aunts and uncles and cousins 
called there to see him. There wasn't 
a thing in our hospital that they missed 
seeing, and luckily they got there just 
as a 5>ible woman was telling Bible 
stories in the children's ward. The 
family listened to every word, then one 
of the aunts said: "Oh yes! I remem- 
ber ! Daffodil told us that story once ! ' ? 

The day that " Pretty Girl" left the 
hospital, the grandfather was so grate- 
ful to our Dr. Missionary that he 
brought him a red block of wood, on 
which was printed in queer black 
Chinese letters how thankful he was to 
the exalted and celestial doctor for the 
marvelous cure of his insignificant little 
grandson. 

The doctor hung it in his reception 
room for a while, and felt very glad 
he had won over this family. 



FOKTY-SKCOM) STOKE 



WHAT THE GRANDFATHER DID 
WITH THE IDOLS 




Little lips that God has made 
'Neath the far-off temple's shade 
Give to gods of wood and stone 
Worship that should be God's own. 

Little hands whose wondrous skill 
God has made to do His will, 
Offerings bring and serve with fear 
Gods that cannot see or hear. 

Once again dear Lord we pray 
For the children far away 
Who have never even heard 
Jesus' name, our sweetest word. 

— Anon. 

274 



"WHAT THE GRANDFATHER 
DID WITH THE IDOLS'' 

After " Pretty Girl" came home 
from our Hospital in Amoy, and was 
well enough to go to school every day 
in his queer basket baby carriage, his 
grandfather got into an entirely new 
habit: he got into the habit of going 
to our church in Amoy! He liked to 
listen to the preacher. 

"He speaks words of sense/' he said 
to his sons, and they would solemnly 
nod their heads. For in China young 
people know that old people know best, 
and they listen politely to whatever they 
say. Before long they got into the habit 
of going to church, too ! 

And one never-to-be-forgotten day 
the cook came into the kitchen in the 
morning and found there was no paper 
kitchen god anywhere ! There were no 
idols on any of the shelves in that whole 

275 



276 Forty-second Story 

house, there was no tin rooster on the 
roofs, no bowls of incense anywhere! 
Well, the cook said he simply could not 
cook " early rice" until he had wor- 
shipped the kitchen god! As for the 
grandmother and the aunts, they nearly 
died of fright, quite sure something 
awful would happen very soon. But 
nobody dared report it to the grand- 
father! The grandmother said he had 
seemed worried lately, and this would 
make him even more unhappy. 

But lo and behold! in walked the 
grandfather just then with the nicest 
kind of a smile all over his face ; every- 
body bowed very politely to him. 

"Why do I see such fear painted on 
all your faces?" he asked. 

"Alas! Alas!" said the grandmother. 
"Every one of the idols is gone from 
our house, and we know something 
dreadful will happen. Oh, what can 
have happened % ' ' 

Then the astonishing grandfather did 
an astonishing thing; he actually said 
he had carried all the idols over to our 



What Grandfather Did With Idols 277 

missionary's house himself that very 
morning, and burned them all up, so 
that nothing but ashes was left ! 

You should have seen the grand- 
mother and the aunts and the cousins 
then ! But Little Miss Daffodil skipped 
with joy! "Are you a Christian now, 
Honorable grandfather?" he asked. 

"Yes," said the grandfather smiling, 
1 ' I am a Christian. The missionary has 
made me see how foolish our old idols 
are. It took me a long time to believe 
him, however." 

So one Sunday he joined our church 
in Amoy, and Little Miss Daffodil never 
was so happy before ! She said to our 
missionary : ' ' Perhaps if I had not been 
such a miserably disagreeable little 
crosspatch, I would never have met you, 
and then grandfather never could have 
heard about Jesus or joined the 
church." 

And our missionary said a little 
sadly: "I guess that is true, dear, for 
there aren't nearly enough missionaries 
to go around in China, so we have to 



278 Forty-second Story 

depend on little school girls like you 
to carry the story of Jesus back home to 
their families. " 

I wish there were enough mission- 
aries in China to go around, don't you? 
It's nice that we can help by giving our 
money, though, then " Pretty Girl" and 
"Daffodil" can have a kindergarten 
and a school and a church to go to 
every day, and other little yellow boys 
and girls can hear about Jesus. 



FORTY-THIRD STOR* 



THE CRADLE THAT HUNG IN A 
TREE 




This is the Cradle That Hung in a Tree— 

Isn't it cunning as cunning can be? 

And this is "Red Beads" whose blanket so bright 

Is never long out of her papoose's sight. 

She weeds in the garden, she rakes, and she hoes, 

ind hangs up the cradle wherever she goes. 

279 



1 THE CRADLE-THAT-HUNG-IN- 
A-TREE" 

Once we had some stories about a 
Cradle-that-walked-on-two-feet — I won- 
der if you remember that the cradle was 
really a little Japanese girl who carried 
the baby around on her back all day 
long? The cradle I am going to tell 
you about today is just as funny, for 
if the mother wants to, she can fasten 
it on her back, or if she is busy hoeing, 
or digging, or chopping wood she can 
hang the cradle up in the branch of a 
tree! It rocks away up there, to and 
fro, to and fro, like the little lullaby 
we all love: 

"Rockabye baby on the tree top 
When the wind blows the cradle will 
rock." 

Perhaps I had better tell you that 
the baby vn the queer cradle, and the 

280 



Cradle That Hung in a Tree 281 

mother digging in the garden, and the 
lazy father smoking a pipe in the shade 
of the tepee, are all some of the red 
members of God's Family. They live 
right here in our own America, so we 
call them "American Indians/ ' 

But now let me tell you some more 
about the cradle that hung in a tree, and 
about the baby asleep in it. In the first 
place, all Indian babies are called pa- 
pooses — let us all say the word papoose 
out loud together! "Papoose." Per- 
haps you can see from your picture that 
the papoose cradle is partly made of 
wood, but wrapped all around the baby 
are soft warm skins from a big animal 
called a moose. Bright feathers from 
the birds and pretty beads are sewed 
on his cradle, too. His little fur dress 
is made from rabbit skins, and he is 
really very comfortable up in his tree. 
He takes "forty winks," and then he 
hears a squirrel chattering to him. You 
and I would not know what the squirrel 
was saying, but the little papoose cocks 
his head on one side to listen, then he 



282 Forty-third Story 

gurgles with joy, for somehow or other 
he understands! But he never tells. It 
is really the strangest thing that all the 
red members of God's Family seem to 
understand the language of His birds 
and His animals better than anyone 
else in His Family, — they hear a cer- 
tain bird call and the Indian chief says 
to his braves: "It is a sign that the 
heavens will send rain!" You and I 
cannot understand these things, because 
we live in houses, and our houses are 
in towns, while up in his cradle the 
papoose lives right among the animals 
in God's World and becomes neigh- 
borly with everything there. 

The little house our papoose lives in 
is just about as queer as his cradle, it 
is called a tepee. It looks like a circu- 
lar tent, with the sides made out of 
animal skins. The papoose's mother 
made it ! First of all, she chopped down 
a tree and cut off some nice long sticks, 
they were for tepee poles. Then she 
tanned the skins of some animals her 
husband had shot, and sewed them to- 



Cradle That Hung in a Tree 283 

gether. She even painted figures of 
men and horses and dogs on the skins, 
after which the house was ready to go 
up. So she planted the tepee poles in 
a ring, and she tied them together at 
the top, so that they looked exactly like 
great capital X's. Around this she tied 
the skins, leaving an opening in front 
for the door and a hole at the top for 
the smoke to go out. But it does not 
always go out, and sometimes rain 
comes in, so it gets rather damp and 
smoky indoors. The whole family live 
and sleep and cook and eat inside the 
one round room, and I must not forget 
the yellow dog! 

Just between you and me, I think it 
is a splendid thing that our papoose can 
spend so much time up on his tree 
branch getting acquainted with the sun 
and the birds and the squirrels. 

1 have already hinted at the hard 
work the papoose's mother does and 
how lazy the father seems to be! He 
only likes to do grand big things, like 
hunting and fighting and canoeing. But 



284 Forty-third Story 

mostly he likes to sit in the shade of 
his tepee smoking a queer long pipe. 
So how the Indian mother does have to 
work to make up for his laziness: she 
plants the seeds, she raises the crops, 
she cooks the food, she chops the wood, 
she even takes down the tepee and puts 
it up again when the lazy father de- 
cides it is time to move to another place 
where the hunting may be better. 
Then, too, she sews the soft leather 
moccasins that the children wear on 
their feet and the other clothes they 
wear. She knows how to weave the 
wonderful blankets and the soft lovely 
baskets that your mother loves to buy. 
It is no wonder that she gets tired and 
is always rather quiet, because she has 
so much to do. 

We have some splendid missionaries 
who live with the Indians, and next 
Sunday I am going to tell you how one 
of our missionaries got acquainted with 
"One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns!" 



FORTY-FOURTH STORY 

ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, 
THEEE LITTLE INJUNS 




Inside such a tepee as this, so I've heard, 

Live Black Thunder, Strong Arm and little Snowbird 

Three little Injuns who do lively stunts 

To imitate father who goes on great hunts. 

Something for you to do : The tepee is a very 
light brown, you might pretend to help Red Beads 
paint patterns on it. 



285 



"ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, 
THREE LITTLE INJUNS" 

I hope you have not forgotten my 
story last Sunday about the cunning 
Indian papoose whose cradle hung up 
in a tree, for today I want to tell you 
how our missionary paid a visit to the 
tepee where the papoose lives with his 
lazy father and his busy mother, and his 
One Little, Two Little, Three Little In- 
jun brothers and sisters! 

Our missionary rode out to their 
tepee on a nice saddle pony. She rode 
for miles and miles along a lonely 
mountain trail through the lonely 
forests, but she was not afraid because 
she knew God was taking care of her. 

Finally she saw the round tepee. But 
it happened that Red Beads, the 
mother, had fastened the papoose on 
her back and was way off somewhere 

286 



One, Two and Three Little Injuns 287 

picking berries and acorns for supper. 
So after our missionary had tied her 
pony to a tree, she feared no one was 
home, after all. Yet all the time six 
very bright eyes were looking at her 
from inside the tepee! Just as our 
missionary looked inside, there was a 
great scuffling of little feet, so our mis- 
sionary smiled to herself as she said 
out loud : 

"Oh, hello, Snowbird! Are you 
there? And you, Strong Arm? And 
you, Black Thunder f" 

Silence! You have no idea how shy 
those One Little, Two Little, Three 
Little Injuns were ! They never said a 
word, but our missionary knew a thing 
or two, for she sat down on a box just 
outside, and she took from her pocket 
four pieces of candy and three pretty 
cards. Without saying a word she put 
one piece of candy in her mouth and 
ate it! She knew they were watching 
her. When she got all through she said 
to herself: "Yum-yum! Good sweet 
candy!" Then she picked up another 



288 Forty-fourth Story 

piece and pretended to eat that, but 
grab! grab! grab! Some little red 
hands had snatched all the pieces of 
candy and the cards, too. 

Our missionary was expecting this, 
so she grabbed, too, and caught the little 
brown arms and drew Black Thunder, 
Strong Arm and Snowbird up to her 
lap, and started telling a story right 
away. "Once upon a time there was 
a big storm, the waves were ever so 
high, higher than your tepee, and Jesus 
was in a canoe fast asleep on the lake. 
His friends were scared at the big 
waves, so they woke him up. 'Look at 
the waves!' they said. ' Don't you care 
that we may all be drowned?' But 
Jesus was Chief-of-the- Waves, for he 
made them, so He said ' Peace, be still!' 
and the big waves lay down flat and 
smooth when they heard Him. Here is 
a picture of it on your card, Black 
Thunder!" 

Black Thunder loved stories, and he 
had listened so hard he had forgotten 
to eat his candy. The others were 



One, Two and Three Little Injuns 289 

listening with all their little red ears, 
too. 

""What does my picture tell about V 9 
asked Snowbird. 

And that was the way our mission- 
ary got acquainted all over again with 
these three shy little red Indians. 
When she had finished her stories, 
Black Thunder said: "You just ought 
to see me shoot with my bow and 
arrow. " 

"I should love to see you do it!" our 
missionary said. So Black Thunder 
ran for his bow and arrow. He gave 
her some little pebbles. 

"You throw them up in the air and 
I can hit them/' he said. So our mis- 
sionary threw pebble after pebble up 
in the air and Black Thunder's arrows 
always hit them. 

"That is wonderful!" our mission- 
ary said. Then Snowbird showed her 
a pretty bead collar she had made for 
their queer-looking old yellow dog, and 
while they were talking Red Beads and 
the papoose came home, with a big 



290 Forty-fourth Story 

basket full of berries and acorns for 
supper. 

Our missionary invited them all to 
walk over to church the next Sunday, 
and up piped Black Thunder: "Will 
there be more stories about Jesus?" 
When our missionary nodded her head 
"Yes," then One Little, Two Little, 
Three Little Injuns said in a chorus: 
1 ' We '11 be there ! ' ' And they were, too ; 
even Red Beads came with the papoose 
on her back. But I'll save that for next 
time ! 



FORTY-FIFTH STORY 

HOW THE DUCKS GOT THEIR 
FINE FEATHERS 




Here are the ducks who in the Fall weather, 
Were once painted gaily, feather by feather. 
And if you should ask if this story is true, 
I'd have to confess I don't think so, do you? 



291 



"HOW THE DUCKS GOT THEIR 
FINE FEATHERS" 

One cool night in November when 
the moon was big and yellow, and great 
flocks of ducks and geese were flying 
over the Indian tepees, calling in 
strange low tones to each other, inside 
the tepee Red Beads and the papoose 
and One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns were all shivering over the fire ; 
so Big Eagle, the lazy father, said he 
would tell them a fairy story. He told 
it this way: 

"The Buck people are traveling to- 
night just as they have been traveling 
at this moon ever since the world was 
young. They are going away from 
winter because they cannot make a liv- 
ing when ice covers the river. You 
have noticed that the Buck people wear 
fine feathers, but you do not know how 
they got them, so tonight I will tell you. 

292 



How Ducks Got Fine Feathers 293 

"It was in the fall when leaves were 
yellow that it happened, long, long ago. 
Napa saw them flying over the tepees, 
as you see them tonight. Napa was 
clever, and he called out: ' Hello, Duck 
People, come into my tepee, I will give 
you a big dance/ 

" ' Don't you do it!' said the gray 
goose to the others, 'Napa is always up 
to something bad.' 

"But Napa built a cheerful fire and 
when it was bright he said: 'Oh, come 
on into the tepee V and he began to sing 
a song in the duck-talk, and keep time 
with his drum. The Duck people liked 
the music, and came a little nearer, 
until pretty soon they waddled right 
into the tepee, and stood around the fire, 
watching for trouble all the time, 
though! Then Napa said: 'This is go- 
ing to be a Blind Dance, and you will 
all have to be painted first. Brother 
Mallard, name the colors. Tell me how 
you want me to paint you.' 

" 'Well,' said the Mallard Drake, 
'you may paint my head green, and put 



294 Forty-fifth Story 

a white circle around my throat like a 
necklace. Then I want a brown breast 
and yellow legs. But I don't want my 
wife painted that way.' 

"So Napa painted him as he asked, 
but he painted his wife differently. 
Then he painted the Wood-duck, and 
the Canvasback, and the Teal, and the 
Blue-bill and the Goose, singing cheer- 
fully all the time. They looked very 
pretty, and began to think they were 
going to enjoy themselves very much. 

" 'Now we are ready to dance, I 
guess/ said Napa, putting away his 
paints. 'It is the Blind Dance, so when 
I beat with my drum you must all shut 
your eyes tight and circle around the 
fire while I sing. Every duck that 
peeks will have sore eyes forever!' 

"So the Duck people shut their eyes, 
and Napa began to sing: 'Come lovely 
Ducks, — Tum-Tum-Tum-Tum. ' 

"Around the fire they all waddled to 
the music, but as soon as they reached 
Napa, the old rascal would seize them 
and wring their necks, so he could eat 






How Ducks Got Fine Feathers 295 

them, by and by. Well, everything was 
going along finely until one Duck 
peeked, and saw what was going on. 
6 He is killing us!' he cried. 'Let us 
fly ! ' So then there was a great squawk- 
ing and quacking and fluttering of 
wings as the Duck people flew from the 
tepee. Of course most of the Duck 
people peeked as soon as they heard 
what their brother Duck said, so even 
to this day they still have sore, red eyes. 
You can see that the next time you 
look. And you can see the very colors 
Napa painted there so long ago, still 
very bright and beautiful. They will 
stay that way forever, too." 

When the story was over Snowbird 
said: "That was mean of Napa, wasn't 
it?" 

And Black Thunder said: "But some 
Indians are that way, aren't they, 
father?" 

Big Eagle nodded his head, he was 
almost asleep again. 



FORTY-SIXTH STORY 

THE JESUS-ROAD 




The Jesus-Road is hard to walk — 
For those who like the tomahawk. 
For Jesus taught us each to pray: 
"Help us forgive our foes this day." 

But in our Indian church it's fine 
To see new Indians fall in line, 
And follow Jesus day by day, 
By walking in the Jesus-way. 



T / 




296 



tl 



THE JESUS-ROAD' 3 



One Sunday Red Beads, the Indian 
mother, and the papoose, and One 
Little, Two Little, Three Little Injuns 
all walked the four long miles from 
their tepee to our church, because our 
missionary had especially invited them 
to come, as you probably remember. 

Red Beads had on her brightest red 
blanket. You could see her coming a 
long way off, with the papoose cradle 
tied on her back ! 

I wonder if you know that the In- 
dians never heard about Jesus until 
our missionaries told them; they don't 
even know about how God made His 
World, for they think that everything 
in the earth is full of spirits; so that 
there are sun spirits, and moon spirits, 
cloud spirits, wind spirits, tree spirits, 
grass spirits, stone spirits, bird spirits, 
squirrel spirits — oh ever and ever so 

297 



298 Forty-sixth Story 

many of them, more than I could pos- 
sibly tell you! The Indians worship 
these. There are even tepee spirits, and 
our missionaries sometimes see little 
pieces of red calico hanging on one of 
the poles of their tepees, to make the 
tepee spirits happy! 

Although Red Beads and the children 
had heard our missionary tell about 
Jesus many times still it was hard for 
them to remember all she said, and just 
as hard to believe. The Indians do not 
know about Heaven, either. They think 
when they die they may go to a place 
called the Happy Hunting Grounds, 
where there will be plenty of good fat 
animals to be killed. So every Sunday 
when they walked four miles to our 
church they learned something entirely 
new. Quite often they forgot all about 
it on the way home, but Red Beads knew 
all the time that other Indians were 
very happy when they became Chris- 
tians, and she liked to think sometime 
she would be just as happy. 

Once for several weeks Snowbird 



The Jesus-Road 299 

was very sick and not able to go to 
church and Sunday school. Our mis- 
sionary asked Black Thunder about 
her, and he said she was so sick that 
their father had called in the medicine 
man to cure her. Our missionary was 
very sorry to hear that, and after Sun- 
day school she rode over on her pony to 
the tepee, but the medicine man was 
there already. 

I know you would have been scared 
to see him, for he looked terrible 
enough to frighten anybody. First of 
all, his face was almost all covered with 
paint, — white and blue and red. On top 
of his head he wore a pair of fierce-look- 
ing buffalo horns, and around his waist 
he wore a belt made out of snake skins. 
In his hand he carried a big rattle, 
which made a great noise whenever he 
shook it, which was far too often for 
poor little sick Snowbird. 

When he first came he sat on the 
ground for a while, w T rapped up in his 
blanket; then he got up and began to 
dance wildly around Snowbird, waving 



300 Forty-sixth Story 

his arms and shaking his rattle ! I won- 
der if you can guess why he did it ? 

Well, he thought, and Black Eagle 
thought, and Red Beads thought that 
if he made noise enough he could 
frighten the fever spirit away. The 
One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns thought so, too ! 

Our missionary arrived when the 
noise was the very loudest and his danc- 
ing the very wildest. After the medi- 
cine man was all through and had 
stalked solemnly away, wrapped in his 
blanket, our missionary gave Snowbird 
some medicine she had brought with 
her, and she bathed her hot little head, 
and held her hand and sang her softly 
to sleep with sweet low hymns about 
Jesus. Perhaps your mother has made 
you feel better by singing that way, and 
you know how it makes you feel cooler 
and quieter and sleepier. Nobody can 
explain things like that, but our mis- 
sionary knew it was true, because when 
she was a little girl, her mother had 
sung her to sleep that way, you see. 



The Jesus-Road 301 

Every day after that our missionary 
rode over on her pony to help make 
Snowbird comfortable, and Red Beads 
said to Big Eagle, her husband: "The 
pale face people who walk in the Jesus- 
Road know more than our medicine 
man!" 

Big Eagle just grunted, because he 
was dreaming about hunting buffaloes, 
but One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns piped up: "I don't see why we 
don't walk in the Jesus-Road, too!" 



FORTY-SEVENTH STORY 

THE GREAT POW WOW 









^m> v. - .«» * 

n 







Here are the people and here is the tent 

To which Red Beads and all of her family went. 

Here are the dogs who find it a lark 

To creep into meetings and boisterously bark! 

But isn't it fine that so many are there? 

It surely shows how the Indians care 

To hear about Jesus, and learn how to be 

The kind of good Christians He must love to see. 





\ 



"THE GREAT POW WOW" 

I wonder if you guessed from my 
other stories about Red Beads, the In- 
dian mother, and Snowbird, Strong 
Arm and Black Thunder that they were 
really all going to become Christians? 
For that is just what happened. Not 
all in one day, of course, oh no. But 
after two years of- walking the four 
long miles from their tepee to our Sun- 
day school, they all joined our church, 
and they really were so different and 
so very happy that they did wish their 
father, Big Eagle, could walk in the 
Jesus-Road, too. But they never could 
get Big Eagle to go to church ; it seemed 
too far to him; he liked best to sit 
around at home smoking and dreaming 
of the good old days, when Indians were 
very fierce, and hunted all day long and 
scalped their enemies. In those days 
they used to have great Pow Wows, 

303 



304 Forty-seventh Story 

when great Indians would meet to- 
gether and make the pipe of peace and 
talk big talk together. He liked to 
think of these things all day long. 

But finally winter came, and the 
family were all cooped up in the tepee 
more than in summer, so he couldn't 
help but hear Red Beads singing the 
hymns about Jesus, and at night he 
saw One Little, Two Little, Three Little 
Injuns saying their prayers at their 
mother's knee, the way our missionary 
had asked them to do, and Big Eagle 
got interested. 

He w^as so curious he said: "Who is 
this Jesus you talk about?" 

You can't imagine how proud Black 
Thunder was to be able to tell his father 
all he knew about Jesus. But Big Eagle 
said: "I cannot understand all you 
mean, but I can see you are happy on 
the Jesus-Road." 

Then by and by winter was over, and 
another summer was over, and one Sun- 
day Red Beads came home from church 
much excited. "There is going to be 



The Great Pow Wow 305 

a big Camp Meeting this week, we are 
all invited. " 

Big Eagle opened his eyes: "What is 
a Camp Meeting % ' ' he asked lazily. 

"It is like the Pow Wows that used 
to be," said Red Beads. "All the In- 
dians will meet together and hear big 
talking for several days." 

"Let ns go! " he said. 

So the next week Red Beads was very 
busy taking down the tepee, and rolling 
up the skins into a big bundle, which 
she tied upon two of the poles. One 
end of these she fastened to the pony, 
the other dragged along the ground, 
something like a cart without wheels. 
She packed up everything else and car- 
ried it herself, although you would sup- 
pose she already had enough with the 
papoose tied on her back! Big Eagle 
just carried his gun, he was too proud 
to carry anything else! Then off they 
started ! 

Other families were starting, too, and 
it was a pretty sight to see the bright 
blankets and feathers, and the wagons 



306 Forty-seventh Story 

traveling along over the hill into the 
beautiful green valley of Medicine 
Creek. 

When they got there, the tepee had 
to be put up again, and our One Little, 
Two Little, Three Little Injuns were 
made wildly happy by having white 
ribbons pinned on them marked 
"Courier," which meant they were to 
be busy passing h3 r mn books, carrying 
chairs, and doing other little useful 
things all day long. You know yourself 
how much more fun it is to do things, 
than just to sit around doing nothing! 

There were several things about those 
meetings that Snowbird, Strong Arm 
and Black Thunder thought were very 
funny indeed. One was the Camp 
Crier, an Indian man who was chosen 
to cry out the time for the beginning 
of each service. The children liked to 
hear him lift up his great voice — he 
really could be heard for half a mile! 
Think of that! The other thing that 
amused them was the Dog Committee. 
It was their duty to keep all the dogs 



The Great Pow Wow 307 

out of the tent while the meetings were 
going on. This was really hard work, 
for almost every family there had been 
followed by a dog! I quite forgot to 
tell you that the yellow dog had fol- 
lowed our One Little, Two Little, Three 
Little Injuns to the Camp Meeting. 
One day he crept into the tent, and 
sneaked right up to the platform, he 
cocked his head on one side very wisely, 
exactly as if he understood every word 
the preacher said ! And he did not like 
it very well when the Dog Committee 
chased him away, either ! 

The meetings were perfectly splen- 
did. Every day a minister told the 
Indians about Jesus, and then some of 
the Indians would get up and tell how 
happy they were walking in the Jesus- 
Road. One day, the very nicest thing 
of all happened — at least it was nicest 
for our One Little, Two Little, Three 
Little Injuns! for Big Eagle, their 
father, stood up in the meeting and said 
he was going to begin to walk in the 
Jesus-Road, too. 



3o8 Forty-seventh Story 

So this is one of those nice stories 
about the red members of God's Family 
where everybody lived happily ever 
after! 



FORTY-EIGHTH STORY 

CAMEL TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES 




Over the sands, so yellow and hot, 
Travels the camel, and minds it not: 

God made him so 

That he easily can go 
Without many things that we need a lot. 



Something for you to do : Suppose you paint the 
hot sand yellow and the camel brown, and the cover 
on the camel red, then you will know how the desert 
looks. 

309 



"CAMEL TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES" 

Far, far across the sea, near the 
place where Jesus was born, is a big 
country called Arabia, where there are 
big deserts. Perhaps you know that a 
desert is a big bare piece of land cov- 
ered with hot yellow sand. It is bare be- 
cause nothing will grow there. It is a 
very long and dangerous journey across 
the desert in Arabia, because there are 
no roads anywhere — just sand, sand, 
sand, and it is very hard to get water 
there. 

There is no nice green grass for the 
animals to eat — nothing but thorns and 
dry wood, but when God made His 
World He made the camels especially to 
live in these deserts, so men could travel 
there. He made the camel's mouth 
verv hard inside, so that he could eat 

*/ 7 

the thorns and even the bits of wood, 

310 



Camel Tails and Other Tales 311 

too, if he has to ! Sometimes there are 
big sand storms in the deserts, — people 
and horses are killed in the storm be- 
cause they don't know what to do. But 
the clever old camel buries his head in 
the sand when he sees the cloud com- 
ing, and pulls it out after the storm is 
over. God taught him to do that on 
purpose to live in the desert. 

Then when the journey is over, the 
camel folds his front legs under him as 
he kneels down, then he bends his back 
legs, too, so that it is easier for the man 
on his back to get off. 

God's Family who live in Arabia are 
called Arabs; some of them live in 
towns while others live in tents wher- 
ever they may wish to pitch them. To- 
day I would like to tell you a story 
about a little Arabian baby named 
Ibrahim, whose mother and father live 
in a tent near the desert, like the one 
you have in your picture. The father 
owns two camels, and takes people on 
trips across the desert. 

When Ibrahim was only a day old, 



312 Forty-eighth Story 

they rubbed a brown powder all over 
his body, and painted his eyelids, then 
they wound him up in a piece of calico 
and tied a string around him, exactly 
as if he were a package of candy ! In- 
deed his mother almost thought he was 
that, for she whispered to him: "You 
jar of milk and honey! You sweet 
pomegranate blossom !" 

So there he lay, all tied up tight with 
a close-fitting bonnet on his head. 
There were a few blue beads on the bon- 
net, — not nearly so much to look pretty, 
though, as to keep off the Evil Eye. 
By this time, you and I ought to know 
all about what evil spirits are, but Evil 
Eye is a new thing to fear, isn't it? 
It means about the same thing, because 
the Arab mother thinks any stranger 
who looks at her precious baby can 
make it get sick and die. So besides the 
blue beads, Ibrahim's mother tied a 
piece of paper around his arm, on which 
was written a few verses from the 
Koran, the one book everyone knows in 
Arabia. 



Camel Tails and Other Tales 313 

I think you would be amazed at the 
way the mother herself was dressed, 
although she looked exactly like all the 
other women in Arabia. She wore two 
dark skirts, one of which she brought 
up over her head like a shawl. When 
she went out-of-doors she wore a black 
veil, oh, a very heavy one indeed, across 
her face, so that only her eyes showed. 
This was so that no one could see her 
face. 

Perhaps it was lucky that Ibrahim's 
father was poor, because richer women 
were not allowed to walk on the street 
at all. But she was so poor that she had 
to carry her own w r ater jar to the vil- 
lage well, to draw wrater. She carried 
the jar on her head, exactly the way 
women did hundreds and hundreds of 
years ago when Jesus lived in that very 
land. And she knew just how to hold 
her head so the jar never fell off. She 
washed the clothes down by the rivei% 
too, and sometimes when she was down 
there she heard a voice crying from the; 
steeple of a tall building: "Come to 



314 Forty-eighth Story 

prayer! Come to prayer! Allah is 
Great ! There is no God but Allah, and 
Mohammed is his prophet!" 

Everybody in all that town would fall 
on their knees and pray. Five times a 
day the man came out in the steeple and 
called "Come to prayer!" and five 
times a day everybody fell on their 
knees, wherever they were, by the river, 
or in a shop, or on the desert, or in their 
homes. 

I can hear you saying: "I'm afraid 
they aren't Christians, are they?" I 
am sorry to say they aren't, and next 
Sunday I will tell you more about this 
curious custom. 



FORTY-NINTH STORY 

THE HOUSE THAT WEARS AN 
OVERCOAT 




±~S3=z£ 




Five times a day 

The Arabs pray, 

And many foolish words they say, 

As on their rugs they kneel them down, 

And bow their heads toward Mecca-town, 

While in their minds, in visions float, 

The Ho use-that- wears-an-overcoat. 



3i5 



"THE HOUSE-THAT-WEARS-AN- 
OVERCOAT" 

Do you remember my telling you last 
Sunday about the brown Arab members 
of God's Family, who live in a far- 
away country called Arabia, near a 
great desert? Perhaps you remember 
also that the family were poor, and 
lived in a tent, and that the mother 
pulled a black veil over her face when- 
ever she went to the well for water, or 
to the river to wash the clothes. But 
above all, I hope you remember that 
wherever they are, indoors or out-of- 
doors, these Arabs bow down on their 
knees five times a day with their faces 
rurned toward Mecca. 

For today I am going to tell you how 
Ibrahim's father went to this city 
called Mecca, and how these people hap- 
pen to pray five times every day. 

316 



House That Wears an Overcoat 317 

Ibrahim's father owned two camels, 
and a man from his town came to him 
and said: "I am going to make a pil- 
grimage to Mecca — how much will you 
charge to take me on your camels?" 

Well, then they had a big quarrel, 
for Ibrahim's father began by asking 
too much, and the man offered too little, 
because that is the queer way they have 
of doing things in Arabia. "No! No!" 
said the man, "I will only pay half 
what you ask!" Then Ibrahim's father 
pretended to get mad, and it took them 
ten minutes to agree on the price they 
each knew was right ! 

But finally they really got off. They 
had to take plenty of food and water to 
last for days and days, because they 
had to go over the desert, where nobody 
lives and where there is no water, no 
trees, no grass, just sand — sand — hot, 
hot sand. . . . 

Day after day after day the patient 
old camels kept walking and walking 
and walking over the hot sand, and I 
am sure you must be wondering what 



318 Forty-ninth Story 

can make anybody want to take such a 
long tiresome trip to the city called 
Mecca ? What can be in Mecca to make 
it worth while % 

It would not seem worth while to any 
of us, or to our fathers and mothers, for 
the only thing at Mecca is the House- 
that- Wears-an-Overcoat ! 

I guess you never heard of anything 
so queer before, did you ? So while the 
camels are stalking their dreary way 
over the hot sands of the desert, let me 
tell you about this queer house. It is 
large and square, and they call it the 
Kaaba. There is absolutely nothing 
inside it, so nobody goes in. But all 
over the outside there is always the 
most beautiful embroidered silk cloth 
which covers it all up just like an over- 
coat ! And every year a wonderful new 
overcoat is carried on the back of a 
camel across the desert, so that last 
year's old silk overcoat can be taken 
off, and cut up into little pieces. Pil- 
grims to Mecca buy these old pieces of 
silk as charms against sickness and the 



House That Wears an Overcoat 319 

Evil Eye I Did you ever hear of any- 
thing so queer? 

And now, listen very hard, while I 
tell you why the city of Mecca and the 
House-that- Wears-an-Overcoat seem so 
important to the brown members of 
God's Family in Arabia. 

For once there lived in Mecca a man 
named Mohammed — will you say his 
name with me: "Mohammed" — who 
pretended to have wonderful dreams. 
Oh yes, he even said that in one dream 
God said to him: " Mohammed, from 
now on you are my prophet, you are 
greater than any prophet that has ever 
lived. " So when Mohammed told his 
dream to the people he even dared to 
say he was greater than the Lord Jesus, 
and he began to start a new religion 
called Mohammedanism, — after his own 
name, you see! Quite a number of 
people believed his dreams, but not 
nearly enough to suit him, so what do 
you suppose he did? He said all the 
Arabs who did not become Moham- 
medans would be killed right away ! Of 



320 Forty-ninth Story 

course the poor Arabs did not want to 
be killed, so it was no wonder they all 
promised to be Mohammedans at once. 
That is the way his new religion spread 
and spread and spread all over that part 
of God's World, until today one out of 
every seven persons in all God's Family 
is a Mohammedan. 

It was because their great prophet, 
Mohammed, was born in Mecca that the 
Arabians always faced toward Mecca 
five times a day when they prayed, and 
it was also the reason they wanted to 
visit Mecca and the House-that- Wears- 
an-Overeoat. 

By this time Ibrahim's father and 
his two camels were almost in Mecca, so 
both the men changed their clothes and 
put on the special kind that pilgrims 
have to wear. They went to a holy well, 
called Zem Zem, to bathe and drink the 
water. Then they went to the House- 
that- Wears-an-Overcoat, and walked 
seven times in front of it, each time 
touching a Black Stone in one of the 
walls. And that was all there tvas to it! 



House That Wears an Overcoat 321 

It seems foolish to have come way 
over the desert just for that, but they 
think it will do them lots of good. I 
am so glad you and I have some mis- 
sionaries of our very own in Arabia to 
show these people that Mohammed was 
really only a very sinful man, and that 
Jesus is the only one in all the world 
good enough to be worshipped. 



FIFTIETH STORY 



DONKEY TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES 




I know our donkey must be wise 
A baby's cries to recognize! 
I guess he knows a thing or two 
That would seem very queer to you! 
You see, his ears are made so long 
He hears things as he walks along: — 
He hears the Arabs say that water 
Will hurt an infant son or daughter, 
That "Evil Eyes" can make boys sick, 
But missionaries cure them quick! 



322 



"DONKEY TAILS AND OTHER 
TALES" 

Last Sunday I told you how Ibra- 
him's father took a long trip across the 
desert to Mecca, to visit the House-that- 
Wears - an - Overcoat. After he had 
traveled all the long way back home over 
the desert, he found his little baby Ibra- 
him very sick, his head was very hot and 
he cried so much that his mother gave 
him some cucumbers and figs to keep 
him quiet. 

"Dear me!" you say, "what dreadful 
things to give a baby ! ' ' 

Well, she didn't know any better; the 
mothers in Arabia are almost all just 
as ignorant as that about their babies. 

"It is the Evil Eye!" she said to her 
husband, so he tied a little bag around 
Ibrahim's neck. In the bag was some 
holy earth he had brought all the way 
from Mecca, he had picked it up right 

323 



324 Fiftieth Story 

in front of the House-that- Wears-an- 
Overcoat. 

"That will surely make him well!" 
said the father. But Ibrahim kept on 
getting worse of course, for you and I 
remember the cucumber and the fig! 
So his mother sent for the village bar- 
ber, who said it was black blood that 
made him sick, so he cut a little vein 
in Ibrahim's wrist and let some blood 
run out. But Ibrahim was just as sick 
as ever afterwards. So, poor as they 
were they sent for the village doctor, 
a dirty horrid-looking man with a red 
fez on his head. 

"Give me 50 cents," he said, "and I 
will give you medicine that will drive 
away twenty Evil Ej^es!" 

But Ibrahim's father said he did not 
have 50 cents. 

"Ah indeed!" sneered the dreadful 
old Arab doctor. "But you and your 
camels have been to Mecca, I hear! 
Was no money paid for the use of your 
camels? Ha! Ha! 4 I know every- 
thing!" 



Donkey Tails and Other Tales 325 

"Well, here is 20 cents/ 7 said Ibra- 
him's father. "You make my baby 
well for 20 cents. " 

"I humbly lick the dust beneath your 
feet," smiled the oily old doctor, "but 
only when I have 30 cents in my hand 
will I make your baby well." 

"Oh do give him the 30 cents," said 
Ibrahim's mother, who saw the poor 
baby was getting worse all the time. So 
the doctor got his 30 cents, but what do 
you suppose his medicine was? 

Why, he wrote on paper some verses 
from the Koran, and made the baby 
swallow the paper! That was all he did. 
He went away proudly, and Ibrahim's 
mother felt dreadfully to see that the 
baby was even worse than before ! 

Then you and I really did something 
to help, for one of our very own Dr. 
Missionaries was riding by on his little 
donkey, when he heard a baby wailing 
and crying inside the tent. So he got 
off, and started to go inside to see what 
the matter was. Doctors know what 
certain kinds of crying mean, and he 



326 Fiftieth Stcry 

knew that Ibrahim's cry came from a 
baby who was sick. 

You ought to have seen how T quickly 
Ibrahim's mother covered her face so 
this strange man in a white suit could 
not see it ! But our Dr. Missionary was 
used to that; in fact, that is the reason 
why we have to have some lady doctors 
in Arabia ! 

Well, after our Dr. Missionary had 
looked at Ibrahim very carefully, he 
gave him some of our kind of medicine 
and said: "I would like to take him to 
my hospital. I can make him well 
there.' ' 

"How much will it cost?" Ibrahim's 
father asked anxiously. 

"It will cost w^hat you can afford to 
pay," said our doctor, seeing how very 
poor their tent was. "If you have no 
money at all, we will do it for nothing. ' ' 

"May Allah reward you for your 
goodness!" said Ibrahim's mother. 

Our Dr. Missionary said nothing just 
then, but he made up his mind that 
sometime soon she must learn about 



Donkey Tails and Other Tales 327 

Jesus ; and she did, too. For when the 
doctor went walking off with Ibrahim 
safely packed into the straw basket 
hanging by the donkey's side, the 
mother and father walked along beside 
him. There wasn't a thing in our Hos- 
pital that they missed seeing: the neat 
nurses, the white beds, the kind doc- 
tors, the low r voices, the soft tender 
hands that undressed Ibrahim from his 
tight calico bandages. 

"Please wash him!" our Dr. Mission- 
ary said to the nurse. 

"No! No!" called Ibrahim's mother, 
"do not wash him, he has never been 
washed!" 

Then they had to show her other 
babies in the hospital who were washed 
every single day of their lives. Nice 
fat gurgling babies, cooing in Arabian 
talk; "Well," she said finally, "wash 
him, but don't use any more water than 
you have to!" 

He bawled and squaw] ed and behaved 
dreadfully during the bath, because such 
a queer thing as water all over him had 



328 Fiftieth Story 

never happened to him before. But 
afterwards he felt a little better, and 
went to sleep. 

He stayed in the hospital three days, 
and all that time his mother hung 
around, and watched things with all her 
eyes. She heard the Bible women tell- 
ing stories about Jesus, and for a whole 
year after she carried the baby home 
she kept going to the beautiful church 
you and I have in Arabia. Then one 
day she and the father, and Ibrahim, 
too, joined our church and were very 
happy. 

It was all owing to our good Dr. Mis- 
sionary who heard a sick baby cry, and 
packed him into the straw donkey 
basket. So I think this is a very good 
donkey tale, don't you? 



FIFTY-FIRST STORY 

THE LAND WHEEE JESUS WAS 
BORN 




The star at the top of the Christmas tree, 

Has one little message for you and for me, 

It says : "Above all your toys and your fun, 

I'm whispering that Christmas was really begun. 

"Away in a manger, far over the sea, 
With shepherds adoring, and bending the knee, 
I'm twinkling up here in the hope that you may 
Help spread the dear story of glad Christmas Day.'* 

S29 



"THE LAND WHERE JESUS WAS 
BORN" 

In just a few days it is going to be 
Christmas Day — the one ctay that every 
Christian boy and girl loves the best of 
all the days in the year! I wonder if 
you know what God's very first Christ- 
mas present to His Family was % Why, 
it was the gift of His Son, Jesus ! We 
sang about it a few minutes ago : 

"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, 
The little Lord Jesus laid down his 

sweet head, 
The stars in the sky looked down where 

he lay, 
The little Lord Jesus, asleep . in the 

hay." 

Of course, that was in the long, long 
ago time; but the angels and the stars 
can never forget what they saw that 

330 



Land Where Jesus Was Born 331 

first Christmas night. I think the 
babies help them to remember ! White 
babies in your home and my home ; yel- 
low babies in China, with black slanting 
eyes ; brown babies in India playing in 
the dust ; red Indian babies laced in tree 
cradles; Eskimo babies in furry bags; 
little black babies in Africa — the stars 
and the angels can't see one bit of dif- 
ference between any of them ! And each 
little baby has his own little angel to 
watch over him — Jesus told us so ! 

But it makes me feel a little sorry to 
remember that when I will be having 
a merry Christmas in m} r home, and you 
will be having a merry Christmas in 
your homes, there will be homes and 
homes all over God's World where His 
Family won't even know it is Christmas 
at all, — because they never so much as 
heard of Jesus. I am so glad God sends 
His angels to watch over all the little 
children all over His World, no matter 
what color they are, or whether their 
parents know about Jesus or about 
Christmas. 



332 Fifty-first Story 

I wonder if you ever thought that 
when God sent the baby Jesus into His 
World as a first Christmas present, He 
was born way over the sea near the land 
where our little friend Ibrahim lives. 
It is very curious that Mary the mother 
of Jesus did some of the very same 
things to Jesus that Ibrahim's mother 
did to Ibrahim. For the Bible tells us 
that on that first Christmas Day when 
Jesus was born Mary " wrapped the 
baby in swaddling clothes/' which 
means exactly the same kind of calico 
bandages that Ibrahim's mother wound 
round and round her baby, so that his 
legs and his arms could not move. And 
I think possibly Ibrahim's mother even 
laid Ibrahim in a manger, just as Mary 
laid Jesus; for in Ibrahim's tent there 
was a trough full of hay where the 
camels ate their food, and when his 
mother wanted Ibrahim safely out of 
the way, I haven't a doubt she laid him 
in there for a while ! 

You yvill remember that when Jesus 
came to live in God's World, He started 






Land Where Jesus Was Born 333 

by being the carpenter's little Boy, so 
we feel sure there was work as well as 
play for Him, because His parents were 
poor, just as Ibrahim's parents were 
poor. Probably He used to go to the 
village well with Mary, His mother, just 
as Ibrahim goes to his village well with 
Ids mother. Mary carried her water jar 
on her head, just the way Ibrahim's 
mother carries hers today. I think 
Jesus went out on the hillsides with 
Mary to gather fagots of brushwood 
for the fire, and He helped drag them 
home, the way Ibrahim helps his mother 
today. Perhaps Jesus helped Mary 
spread the grain out in the sun to dry 
or the olives to ripen, just as Ibrahim 
helps his mother. Or when Mary 
ground the corn into flour, perhaps 
Jesus helped turn the handmill, just as 
Ibrahim helps his mother. 

I like to think that the little boy liv- 
ing today in the same land where Jesus 
lived so many years ago, is doing the 
very same things that Jesus did; but 
wouldn't it be splendid if he could grow 



334 Fifty-first Story 

up and do the same things that Jesus 
did when He grew up? You will re- 
member what those things were: help- 
ing the people who needed help, being 
gentle to those who were in trouble, 
making sick people well again, loving 
little children. 

God made Jesus His first Christmas 
gift to His Family, so everybody in the 
Family could know the way to live. 
But it is not easy to live like Jesus. A 
great many people never even try at 
all; a great many others try, but they 
don't get along very well. But I think 
you and I can see from the stories I 
have been telling }^ou all this year that 
our missionaries are really and truly 
living like Jesus: for they spend all 
their time and their strength in helping 
people, and telling them about Jesus, 
and teaching them the things they need 
to know. It is never easy work, but 
they keep light at it, all the time ! 

So today I want to ask you some- 
thing, now listen hard: If Jesus is 
God's first Christmas gift to us, and if 



Land Where Jesus Was Born 335 

He keeps right on giving us all the nice 
things we have, — our homes and schools 
and churches and pictures and toys — 
don't you really think we might give 
some Christmas present to God? 

I dare say that this very minute we 
each have some little Christmas present 
all ready for mother, and one for father, 
perhaps one for grandmother, and 
brother and sister. But surely we 
oughtn't to leave God out, when He just 
gives us everything we have ! 

Now what do you suppose He would 
rather have the very best of all ? I will 
tell you. I think He would just love 
to hear you and me say to Him: "Dear 
Father in heaven, thank you for all your 
beautiful Christmas presents to me! 
The only present I have to give you is 
myself. If you can use a little boy — 
a little girl — like me this year, I want 
you to please use me. Amen." 

And of course, when you give a 
Christmas present, you never try to 
grab it back, do you ? 

So since we've given ourselves to God 



336 Fifty-first Story 

to use, let's try all this year to do what 
we can to help the other children in 
God's Family to know about Him; then 
perhaps next Christmas a good many 
yellow children and brown children and 
red children can have a merry Christ- 
mas, too. 



FIFTY-SECOND STORY 

THE GIFTS THE WISE MEN" 
BROUGHT 




Pennies and nickels and dollars and dimes 
Seem made to give children very good times. 
But when we remember God's World I don't see 
How we can ever forgetful be 
Of children who, black, red, yellow, and brown 
Are made to stone idols their heads to bow down. 
I think that God wants us like Wise Men to be, 
And give all we can very cheerfully. 



337 



"THE GIFTS THAT THE WISE 
MEN BROUGHT " 

It wasn't very long after the first 
Christmas Day, years and years ago, 
when Jesus was born, that over in that 
far-away land three men set out on 
a journey to find Him. We call them 
the Three Wise Men, and what do you 
suppose they traveled on? Why, on 
camels of course, the very same kind of 
camels that Ibrahim's father rode when 
he went to visit the House-that- Wears- 
an-Overcoat. Day after day the Three 
Wise Men kept riding and riding on 
their camels across the desert, follow- 
ing a beautiful new star in the sky, 
until finally the star stood still over the 
stable where Jesus was. 

Then the camels knelt down in the 
queer way camels have of doing, and 
the Three Wise Men got off their backs 

338 



Gifts the Wise Men Brought 339 

and went into the poor little stable to 
worship Jesus. 

The Bible does not tell us a single 
word these Wise Men said, which 
seems queer because what wise people 
say is usually important ; but the Bible 
does tell us what the Wise Men did: for 
they each gaye Jesus a beautiful pres- 
ent. One of them brought him precious 
gold; another rich frankincense; an- 
other wonderful myrrh. They were all 
very expensiye presents, worth a great 
deal of money. 

It is a strange thing, but ever since 
that day, whenever people come to wor- 
ship Jesus they bring him presents, — 
precious things, like money, that they 
could use for themselves, but they really 
want to bring it to Jesus. Every Sun- 
day in our church we can see people 
bringing their presents of money to 
Jesus, we call it the "Offering." In 
Sunday school we have an offering, too, 
— all of it for Jesus. 

Did you ever stop to think what hap- 
pens to these presents of money for 



340 Fifty-second Story 

Jesus ? It seems to me you must have 
guessed, for every Sunday all this year 
I have been trying to tell you in one 
way or another! When I kept talking 
about our Mr. and Mrs. Missionary 
here, and our Hospital there, our mis- 
sion school in that country, and our 
orphanage in the other country, I meant 
that these precious presents we bring to 
Jesus every Sunday, all go to help pay 
for our work in these far-away places. 
So after this I hope you will love the 
Offering time the very best of all! 
Make up little stories in your own mind 
about which members of God's Family 
you hope will get the money for their 
mission. Perhaps you will do it like 
this: "Let me see — I guess today I 
want the money to help tell the ' Cradle- 
that - Walked - on - Two - Feet' about 
Jesus" — she was the little Japanese girl 
who carried the baby on her back all 
day, you remember? But the minute 
you decide to send the money there, you 
will say: "No, after all, I really think 
I'd rather send it to the little red chil- 



Gifts the Wise Men Brought 341 

dren whose cradles hang up in the 
trees' '; but you're sure to change your 
mind again when you remember the 
lonely sunbonnet children in the Ken- 
tucky mountains, or when you think of 
the brown children in India who wor- 
ship elephant idols. You really will 
have an awful time deciding ! You will 
be so afraid there won't be enough to 
go around if you give a little of the 
offering to each country. 

And sometimes there really isn't quite 
enough money to go around ! Then all 
the men and women w T ho have charge 
of our missions feel very unhappy, be- 
cause they know how badly every single 
one of our missionaries is needed to tell 
the members of God's Family about 
Jesus. 

But I don't believe the people in our 
church who love Jesus will ever stop 
bringing Him offerings when they come 
to worship, do you? For by the time 
you and I are grown up we will be giv- 
ing all we can, and we will be telling 
these very stories I have been telling 



342 Fifty-second Story 

you to our very own little girls and 
boys. So then they will give! Some- 
times I think the only reason people in 
our church don't bring bigger presents 
of money to Jesus is because they don't 
know where it is all going, the way you 
and I know. 

I suppose we could bring more if we 
only tried. The Wise Men brought 
precious gifts to Jesus, things they 
really might have enjoyed keeping for 
themselves. None of us has a great 
deal of money, but every once in a while 
We spend five cents for candy or gum. 
Tell me this: What w T ould the person 
who wanted to help God's Family do 
with that money? You answer that 
question yourself, and next Sunday see 
if we can't have a very much bigger 
offering for Jesus. 

Just think how lovely it will be when 
every single little child in all God's 
Family knows about Him ! Then when 
Sunda3^ comes around, all over God's 
World their dear little voices will be 
singing with you and me: " Jesus loves 






Gifts the Wise Men Brought 343 

me, this I know." And it won't matter 
at all that some of the children will sing 
in Chinese, and some in Japanese, some 
in Hindu and some in English, for God 
understands us all exactly alike. 



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